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NEW ENGLAND HISTORY 
IN BALLADS 



NEW ENGLAND HISTORY 
IN BALLADS 

BY 

EDWARD E. HALE 

AND HIS CHILDREN 
WITH A FEW ADDITIONS BY OTHER PEOPLE 



Illustrated by 

ELLEN D. HALE, PHILIP L. HALE, AND 
LILIAN HALE 



»•» •< 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1903 






1 i (^1 



Copyright, 1893, 1903, 
By Edward E. Hale. 

All rights reserved 






UNIVKRSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON 
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



INTRODUCTION 

I AJsi fond of saj-ing that we have never had 
fifty good American ballads. AVe have never 
had any, if the ballad is to fulfil the conditions 
which ]SIr. Lowell and other writers who know 
have assigned for good ballad poetrj'. 

The truth is that the immortal ballads of the 
past could never have existed had not the people 
who composed them Hved in the conditions of 
life which made them what they were. 

^It. Lowell said that the authors of the EngHsh 
and Scotch ballads had these advantages, wliich 
are hardly possible to-day : 

On€. They were not encumbered with infor- 
mation. 

Two. They sang well because they never 
thought about it. 

Three. In repeating their poems, they had the 
magnetism of the sympathy of their hearers, — 
they saw their faces as they spoke. 

Four. Thev plunged at once into deep water 
without preface. 



vi Introduction 

JF^ive. They lived when and where there were 
no newspapers. 

Sia:. They said things. They neither ha- 
rangued nor described. And to Mr. Lowell's 
remark here, I will add that they never furnished 
a moral. 

Seven. The ballads are really folk-songs, and 
they are the only folk-songs. 

Eight. Travelling from place to place as 
ballad singers did, they had that education for 
uplift which comes from life m the open air, and 
from that only. 

I have abridged somewhat severely Mr. Low- 
ell's eight conditions, but I have used his language 
so far as I could. He says that for such reasons 
the ballad singers stood face to face with life in 
such ways as we cannot enter. He also says 
what is also true, that the old English ballads are 
models of narrative poetry. 

One cannot write down these eight conditions 
without seeing that most of them have been im- 
possible to any person in New England in the 
last three centuries. As for number four, all of 
us might plunge into deep water without preface, 
but I, who have knocked about the world for 
eighty years, have never met five public men who 
were able to do this. A speaker at a dinner 
always has to tell you why he is there, or that he 



Introduction vii 

does not want to speak. There seems something 
in our modern time which makes this beginning 
or propylaeum necessary whenever we build a 
temple. And there is something else which com- 
pels us to adorn a tale or to state a moral, though 
we could simply state things^ as Mr. Lowell says. 
Here are two of his conditions which we might 
live up to, but which we do not choose to live up 
to. And the other six conditions represent social 
arrangements which have been impossible since 
this country was settled. People have been "en- 
cumbered with information " ever since 1620, and 
there has been no occasion for ballad singers to 
travel from place to place. The newspaper has 
been in advance of them since the end of the 
century. 

The Uncle Remus Stories of the South are 
often models of good narrative, and this is clearly 
just because those to whom they are told camiot 
read. But in New England there has never been 
any group of people who could not read. For 
such reasons I might say of the New England 
ballads in this preface what the English midship- 
man said of the manners and customs of the 
Ro-to-to Islands. His captain had assigned to 
him the duty of preparing a report for the Admi- 
ralty on the manners and customs of these islands. 
The poor young man shut himself up in his cabin 



Vlll 



Introduction 



for a day, and at the end of the day his manu- 
script was examined by the captain. In fifteen 
hom-s he had written these words only : " As for 
manners they have none, and their customs are 
very filthy." It might be said of New England 
that she has no ballads and that those she has 
are not good. 

To this remark there are two exceptions, per- 
haps three or four. But even when our best 
" Makers " have tried their hands, the result as 
compared with the ballad has been like a wax 
rose when compared with one fresh cut ft'om the 
garden. Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, and 
Lowell himself, have tried their hands. Long- 
fellow and Whittier have best succeeded in 
throwing overboard the hamper of literary train- 
ing, in plunging into deep water, and swimming 
for life ; yet their best narrative poems are not 
ballads, if one uses language critically. 

There are, however, some forty or fifty poems, 
more or less narrative, which ought to be read in 
any thoughtful study of New England history. 
We have determined in my house that it will be 
well to bring together some of the fifty, and to 
indicate where the rest of them may be found. 
And if this book pretended to nothing else it 
would " CLAIM," as the Patent Office says, 
that it gives to young readers some hints as 



Introduction ix 

to these broken lights of the history of three 
centuries. Of the Four Makers in any such se- 
lection there should appear the poems, to which 
they have given these names. 

Longfellow, The Burial of the Minnisink, The Skele- 
ton in Armor, The Wreck of the Hesperus, The Arsenal 
at Springfield, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, The Phantom Ship, 
In the Churchyard at Cambridge, The Newport Cemetery, 
Paul Revere"'s Ride, Lady Wentworth, The Bells of Lynn. 

Whittier. Cassandra Southwick, Funeral Tree of the 
Sokokis, Pentucket, St. John, The Exiles, The Familisfs 
Hymn, The Fountain, The Merrimack, The New Wife 
and the Old, The Norsemen, Massachusetts to Virginia, 
New Hampshire, — 1845, A New England Legend, The 
Pumpkin, The Quaker of the Olden Time, In the Old 
South. 

Holmes. Old Ironsides, The Dorchester Giant, Lex- 
ington, Harvard Centennial, Berkshire Jubilee, Agnes, The 
Ploughman, The New England Society, 1855, Webster's 
Birthday, Parson Turell's Election, Robinson of Leyden, 
Dorothy Q., The Ballad of the Boston Tea Party, After 
the Fire, The Commemoration Service, God Save the Flag, 
Long Wharf, Grandmother's Bunker Hill, The Old South, 
King's Chapel, The Broomstick Train. 

Lowell. To a Pine Tree, Indian Summer, The Crisis, 
Some of the Biglow Papers, Myles Standish, Pictures from 
Appledore, The Voyage to Vinland, The Fatherland. 

There are, as I have said, many unwritten bal- 
lads. Some of the more interesting titles would 
be — 



X Introduction 

Winslow and Massasoit, 1621. 
The Lobsters at Squantum. 1621. 
Winthrop's Landing in Beverly Harbor. 

" They had gathered strawberries." 1630. 
The Explosion on the Rose. 1640. 
William Blaxton leaves Boston. 

The Sale of King Philip's Wife and Child into Slavery. 
The Imprisonment of Sir Edmund Andros. 
Franklin and his Mother. 
The Birth of the Dauphin. 

I count Mr. Longfellow's ballad of the French 
Fleet as the best New England ballad so far. 
That will be found here. 



The book in the reader's hands, however, was 
not born in the intention to furnish such a cata- 
logue. It happened to me more than twenty 
years ago to go to Europe on a holiday, and to 
leave behind a family of young people who had 
pencils and pens in their hands. I told them 
that there were no ballads proper in New Eng- 
land history, and I proposed to them that while 
we were parted from each other, we should begin 
a series to see if we could not fill in, in a way, 
this blank of the literary history of our own region. 
They did not do a great deal, and I am afraid I 
did nothing in the matter in those four months. 



Introduction xi 

But we all of us knew that we had these ballads 
on our list of omitted duties ; and from time to 
time we have pulled them out from the pigeon- 
holes and hammered away at them. This meta- 
phor is very bad, but the reader must let it 
stand. 

I have brought together now the ballads we 
have written and with them we print ten illus- 
trations. Some of the illustrations must take the 
place of those which we have not written. And 
so the reader has in his hands the collection 
which we have made, say in five and twenty years, 
for better for worse, for richer for poorer. 

Beside these, I have printed here some other 
verses which have been printed before. These 
are not selected for their special interest, but be- 
cause I think they are hard to find. If 1 chose 
the poems of value and interest merely, I should 
have to reprint many of the four " Makers " I 
have named. But their ballads are in every one's 
hands. 

As matter of chronology, I suppose that Mr. 
Longfellow's ballad of the Skeleton in Armor, 
the same whom they discovered in Fall River in 
1833, would be the first poem in this book. If 
this Viking were here at all, he was here with 
Thorvald or Thorfinn as early as the first mil- 
lenium of the Christian era. But the Skeleton 



Xll 



Introduction 



in Armor had for his armor the same copper 
tubes which Gosnold afterwards saw on the In- 
dians in 1602. No such armor was ever worn 
by a Viking. With reluctance, therefore, I give 
this poor Viking up and do not reprint the 
ballad. No. If you please, we will begin with 
Columbus. 

1 need hardly say that the word ballad has 
been used in the broadest possible range of any 
language to which the word belongs. And to 
the word ballad the reader must be careful to 
add the other words and other verses. 



EDWARD E. HALE. 



RoxBURY, Massachusetts, 
September 7, 1903. 



CONTENTS 

t\)t iforerunners; 

Columbus Pase 3 

Sonnet " 5 

The Three Anniversaries " 6 

Adrian Block's Song " 8 

t\)t ifirsit feneration 

The Finding of the First Mayflower "13 

Boston in 1621 "15 

Anonymous " l6 

Anne Hutchinson's Exile "20 

The First Settler "24 

ifrom ttje Colony to tlje ^tate 

Uncle Tracy's Thanksgiving "29 

Anne Dudley "31 

The Lamentable Ballad of the Bloody Brook . . "33 

William Kidd "37 

" Ye Lamentable Ballad and Ye True Historie of 

Captaine Robert Kidd " "40 

Robinson Crusoe "47 

The Queen's Road "51 



xiv Contents 

The Franklin Ballads Page 55 

The Downfall of Piracy " 57 

Franklin's Wit " 61 

At the Inn " 63 

Black Beard " 67 

" Song of Lovewell's Fight " " 6.9 

From Potomac to Merrimac " 76 

Louisbourg " 80 

A Ballad of the French Fleet " 82 

Elegy on the Young Man Bitten by a Rattlesnake " 86 

The Other Half " 91 

The British Grenadier " 92 

Paul Revere's Ride " 95 

New England's Chevy Chase "100 

A Song "108 

Ballad "Ill 

The Marching Song of Stark's Men . . . . "112 

Concord Bridge "114 

The Yankey's Return from Camp '' ll6 

The Yankee Privateer "121 

The Old South Picture Gallery "126 

Another Century " 134 

Chesapeake and Shannon "135 

Old Ironsides "137 

The Funeral of Old John Rudd "140 

The Breach by Point Judith Point "147 

Cotton . "154 



Contents xv 
t\)t Citjil Wiut 

The Civil War Page 159 

Old Faneuil Hall " l6l 

Take the Loan « l63 

The Great Harvest Year "167 

Manila Bay . " 175 

New England to a Truant Lover . . , , c " 177 

Phillips Brooks "179 

Francis Parkman "180 

The Stars "181 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Great Christ Bearer quailed not . . Frontispiece 
"* The spring is come,' she said " Page 14 



" The baby dings ; the mother sings 

" ' Your horse won't eat them, sir ' " 

" And even as I prayed 
The answering tempest came " 



" So through the night rode Paul Revere "" . . 

In a barn at Milk Row 

Stabbed and killed in Havana 

His soul 's marching on 

And then I spent the parting night .... 



20 
60 

81 
99 
106 
153 
159 
162 



THE FORERUNNERS 



NEW ENGLAND HISTORY 



COLUMBUS 

Give me white paper ! 
This which you use is black and rough with 

smears 
Of sweat and grime and fraud and blood and tears, 
Crossed with the story of men's sins and fears, 
Of battle and of famine all these years, 

When all God's children had forgot their 

birth, 
And drudged and fought and died like 
beasts of earth. 

" Give me white paper ! " 
One storm-trained seaman listened to the word ; 
What no man saw he saw ; he heard what no 
man heard. 
In answer he compelled the sea 



4 Ballads of 

To eager man to tell 
The secret she had kept so well 1 
Left blood and guilt and tyranny behind, — 
Sailing still West the hidden shore to find ; 

For all mankind that unstained scroll un- 
furled, 
Where God might write anew the story of 
the World. 



New England History 



SONNET 

To THE Ship which brought a Copy of Michael Angelo's Statue 
OF Christ from Italy to America 

Bark after bark has sunk in gales like these, 
Facing the jealous West, as thou dost now. 
Still thou must breast each wave, nor shun the 

seas, 
Which beetle downward on thy westward prow. 
The great " Christ-bearer " quailed not : he, as 

thou. 
Left Italy to seek our Western shore ; 
And, as another dove another olive bore, 
Seeing across the waste another promise-bow. 

Beat westward still ! beat downward every wave 1 

The Christ who gave our New World to the Old, 

E'en then his secret to his Michael told. 

And to his eye the sacred vision gave. 

Beat the waves down ! let them his form behold 

Who are his " other sheep," not of his early fold. 

ANTiauABiAN Hall, Worcester. 1853, 



Ballads of 



THE THREE ANNIVERSARIES 

Short is the day, and night is long ; 

But he who waits for day 
In darkness sits not quite so long, 

And earlier hails the twilight gray, 
A little earlier hails the ray. 
That drives the mists of night away. 

So was this land cold, dead, and drear. 

When to the rock-bound shore 
That Pilgrim band, Christ-led, drew near. 
The promise of a new-born year, — 
Twilight, which shows that even here 
The sun of gladness shall appear. 
The land be dark no more. 

So was the world dark, drear, and wild. 
When on that blessed morn 

A baby on his mother smiled. 

The dawning comes, the royal child, 
The Sun of life, is born. 



New England History 

The lengthening days shall longer grow, 
Till summer rules the land ; 

From Pilgrim rills full rivers flow, — 
Roll stronger and more grand. 

So, Father, grant that year by year 
The Sun of Righteousness more clear 
To our awaiting hearts appear, 
And from his doubtful East arise 
The noonday Monarch of the skies, — 
Till darkness from the nations flies ; 
Till all know him as they are known, 
Till all the earth be all his own. 



Ballads of 



ROSES ISLAND 

I BELIEVE that the State of Rhode Island derives its name 
from its beautiful Rhododendron. 

This is certain that Adrian Block, who gave the name to the 
island on which Newport stands, must have seen the rhodo- 
dendron maximum in bloom if he landed on the south shore 
of the State, and made any march inland. 

The glory of the Rhode Island flora is in its magnificent 
display of rhododendron maximum. This noble plant appears 
to no more advantage than in the swamps of Rhode Island. 
There is a covert crowded with it, within a mile of my own 
Rhode Island home, to which Aladdin might have been proud 
to take the daughter of the Emperor of China. 

The supposition, therefore, that Adrian Block named 
Rhode Island from its display in July of these beautiful 
flowers is not without foundation in natural history. It is 
quite as likely a supposition as any other which has been 
offered for the origin of the modern name of the island and 
the State. 

ADRIAN BLOCK'S SONG 

Hard aport I Now close to shore sail I 
Starboard now, and drop your foresail ! 

See, boys, what yon bay discloses, 

What yon open bay discloses ! 

Where the breeze so gently blows is 

Heaven's own land of ruddy roses. 



New England History- 
Past the Cormorant we sail. 
Past the ripphng Beaver Tail, 
Green with summer, red with flowers. 
Green with summer, fresh with showers, 
Sweet with song and red with flowers, 
Is this new-found land of ours ! 

Roses close above the sand, 

Roses on the trees on land, 
I shall take this land for my land. 
Rosy beach and rosy highland, 
And I name it Roses Island. 



THE FIRST GENERATION 

1620-1638 



THE FINDING OF THE FIRST 
MAYFLOWER 

Plymouth, 1621 

The gray mists on the hillside fall, 
The gray gulls o'er the harbor call. 
With silent tread they wander down 
Through last year's leaves and grasses brown. 
Said he, " The months go by, this year, 

And all is still and dead. 
Is it, then, always winter here ? " 

" The spring will come," she said. 

An east wind cuts the mist in twain, — 
There is the straight sea line again. 
She draws her mantle close, and he, 
Turning his back upon the sea. 
Speaks : " Lord, thy servant here behold 1 

JVIy sins upon my head ; 
But why, Lord, slay us by thy cold ? " 
" The spring will come," she said. 



14 Ballads of 

She drops her head, and at her feet 
There is a flower white and sweet. 
They brush the leaves aside, and there 
Its pink and white are everywhere. 
A ray of sun — and all the slope 

Laughs with its white and red. 
" It is the Ma5rflower of our hope ; 

The spring is come," she said. 



New England History 15 



BOSTON IN 1621 

After the hardships of the first winter the Pilgrim Fathers 
sent a shallop up the bay to explore the coast. In this boat, 
apparently, was William Bradford, the first governor. The 
lines below show that he saw the peninsula of Shawmut, 
where Boston stands, before the arrival of its first inhabitant, 
William Blaxton. I say first "inhabitant," for there is no 
evidence that any man, white or red, lived on that peninsula 
before him. 

BOSTON IN 1621 

Oh Boston, though thou now art grown 
To be a great and wealthy Town, 
Yet I have seen thee a wild Place, 
Shrubs and Bushes covering thy Face : 
And House then in thee, none there were : 
Nor such as Gold and Silk did wear : 
No Drunkenness were then in thee, 
Nor such Excess as now we see. 
We then drank freely of thy Spring, 
Without paying of Anything. 
We lodged freely where we vv^ould, 
All Things were free and Nothing sold. 



i6 Ballads of 

And they that did thee first begin 
Had Hearts as free and as willing 
Their poor Friends for to entertain 
And never looked at sordid Gain. 

William Bradford. 



The author of the following lines is not known. They 
were first printed in 1773, having been preserved traditionally. 

1630-1640 

New England's annoyances, you that would 

know them, 
Pray ponder these verses which briefly do show 

them. 

The Place where we live is a wilderness Wood, 
Where Grass is much wanting that 's fruitful and 

good, 
Our Mountains and Hills and our Valleys below 
Being commonly covered with Ice and with 

Snow : 
And when the Northwest Wind with violence 

blows. 
Then every Man pulls his Cap over his Nose ; 
But if any 's so hardy and will it withstand. 
He forfeits a Finger, a Foot, or a Hand. 



New England History 17 

But when the Spring opens we then take the Hoe 
And make the Ground ready to plant and to sow : 
Our Corn being planted and Seed being sown, 
The Worms destroy much before it is gi'own. 
And when it is growing some spoil there is made 
By Birds and by Squirrels that pluck up the Blade ; 
And when it is come to full Corn in the Ear, 
It is often destroyed by Raccoon and by Deer. 

And now all our Garments begin to grow thin. 
And Wool is much wanted to card and to spin. 
If we can get a Garment to cover without, 
Our other In-Garments are Clout upon Clout. 
Our Clothes we brought with us are apt to be torn, 
They need to be clouted soon after they 're worn ; 
But clouting our Garments they hinder us 

nothing : 
Clouts double are warmer than single whole 

Clothing. 

If fresh Meat be wanting to fill up our Dish, 
We have Carrots and Turnips as much as we 

wish, 
And if there 's a Mind for a delicate Dish 
We repair to the Clam-Banks and there we catch 

Fish. 



1 8 Ballads of 

For Pottage and Puddings and Custards and Pies 
Our Pumpkins and Parsnips are common Supplies, 
We have Pumpkins at Morning and Pumpkins 

at Noon, 
If it was not for Pumpkins we should be undone. 

If Barley be wanted to make into Malt, 
We must be contented and think it no Fault, 
For we can make liquor to sweeten our Lips 
Of Pumpkins and Parsnips and Walnut-Tree 
Chips. 

Now while Some are going let Others be coming. 
For while Liquor's boiling it must have a 

scumming. 
But I will not blame them, for Birds of a Feather 
By seeking their Fellows are flocking together. 
But you whom the Lord intends hither to bring 
Forsake not the Honey for fear of the Sting ; 
But bring both a quiet and contented Mind, 
And all needful blessings you surely will find. 

[Some verse or verses seem to have been 
lost just before the end. — E. E. H.] 



New England History 19 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 

Nothing in New England history is more interesting or 
more tantalizing than the life of Anne Hutchinson. 

The little colony at the head of Boston Bay had struggled 
along for four years. In September, l630, some twenty or 
thirty families had crossed from their tents or shanties in 
Charlestown, to Shawmut, or Trimountain, opposite, because 
there was the perpetual spring of water there. It is remem- 
bered to-day in " Spring Lane/' and its water supplies the 
steam engine of the Post Office. Bradford refers to it in his 
verses printed already. 

In that first winter the " houses " were little better than 
holes in the ground with roofs above them, — on the lower 
part of the slope from our Tremont Street as you would go 
down to the sea. 

With that Spartan beginning the town had increased 
until, in 1634, there were roads, a meeting-house, the begin- 
ning of a schoolhouse, — and the prospect of being the 
capital. Still, a new settlement, we all know what that is. 
Into such a new town John Cotton came in 1633, his admirer 
and friend, Anne Hutchinson, in 1634, and Sir Henry Vane 
in 1635. 

Who shall say how these newcomers wounded and hurt 
the old settlers. " A certain condescension observable in all 
foreigners," this is Lowell's charming phrase when he de- 
scribes it. What is certain is that Anne Hutchinson, after a 
career like that of Madame Recaniier in her salon in Paris, 
in three years' time had offended the rulers of the State. 
For the first time, and the last, the State authorities inter- 



20 Ballads of 

fered with a local church, and the First Church of Boston 
sent into exile some of its very best members. The magis- 
trates tried Anne Hutchinson on a civil charge. They could 
not prove that her theology was wrong, and they sent her into 
exile on a charge of disturbing the peace by maligning the 
ministers. So the poor woman with her husband and her 
children had to go, and the ballad below describes one night's 
encampment in Rhode Island. There is no authority for the 
supposition that this was a little west of Point Judith. 



1638 

ANNE HUTCHINSON'S EXILE 
A BALLAD 

" Home, home — where 's my baby's home ? 
Here we seek, there we seek my baby's home 
to find. 
Come, come, come, my baby, come ! 

We found her home, we lost her home, and 
home is far behind. 
Come, my baby, come I 
Find my baby's home I " 

The baby clings ; the mother sings ; the pony 
stumbles on ; 
The father leads the beast along the tangled, 
muddy way ; 



New England History 21 

The boys and girls trail on behind ; the sun will 
soon be gone, 
And starlight bright will take again the place 
of sunny day. 
" Home, home — where 's my baby's home ? 
Here we seek, there we seek, my baby's home 
to find. 
Come, come, come, my baby, come ! 

We found her home, we lost her home, and 
home is far behind. 
Come, my baby, come ! 
Find my baby's home I " 



The sun goes down behind the lake ; the night 

fogs gather chill. 
The children's clothes are torn ; and the 

children's feet are sore. 
" Keep on, my boys, keep on, my girls, till all 

have passed the hill ; 
Then ho, my girls, and ho, my boys, for fire 

and sleep once more I " 
And all the time she sings to the baby on her 

breast, 
"Home, my darling, sleep, my darling, find a 

place for rest ; 



22 Ballads of 

Who gives the fox his burrow will give my bird 
a nest. 
Come, my baby, come I 
Find my baby's home ! " 

He lifts the mother from the beast ; the hemlock 
boughs they spread, 
And make the baby's cradle sweet with fern- 
leaves and with bays. 
The baby and her mother are resting on their 
bed ; 
He strikes the flint, he blows the spark, and 
sets the twigs ablaze. 
" Sleep, my child ; sleep, my child I 
Baby, find her rest. 
Here beneath the gracious skies, upon her 

father's breast ; 
Who gives the fox his burrow will give my 
bird her nest. 
Come, come, with her mother, come ! 
Home, home, find my baby's home I " 

The guardian stars above the trees their loving 
vigil keep ; 
The cricket sings her lullaby, the whippoorwill 
his cheer. 



New England History 23 

The father knows his Father's arms are round 
them as they sleep ; 
The mother knows that in His arms her darhng 
need not fear. 
** Home, home, my baby's home is here ; 

With God we seek, with God we find the place 
for baby's rest. 
Hist, my child, list, my child ; angels guard us 
here. 
The God of heaven is here to make and keep 
my birdie's nest. 
Home, home, here 's my baby's home I " 



24 Ballads of 



THE FIRST SETTLER 

What was his name ? I do not know his name. 
I only know he heard God's voice and came ; 
Brought all he loved across the sea, 
To live and work for God — and me ; 
Felled the ungracious oak, — 
With horrid toil 
Dragged from the soil 
The thrice-gnarled roots and stubborn rock ; 
With plenty piled the haggard mountain-side, 
And when his work was done, without memorial 

died. 
No blaring trumpet sounded out his fame ; 
He lived and died. I do not know his name. 

No form of bronze and no memorial stones 
Show me the place where lie his mouldering 
bones. 

Only a cheerful city stands, 

Builded by his hardened hands ; 



New England History 25 

Only ten thousand homes, 
Where every day 
The cheerful play 
Of love and liope and courage comes ; 
These are his monuments, and these alone, — 
There is no form of bronze and no memorial 
stone I 

And I? 
Is there some desert or some boundless sea 
Where thou, gi'eat God of angels, wilt send me ? 
Some oak for me to rend, some sod 
For me to break. 
Some handful of thy corn to take, 
And scatter fiir afield, 
Till it in turn shall yield 
Its hundredfold 
Of grains of gold. 
To feed the happy children of my God ? — 
Show me the desert, Father, or the sea. 
Is it thine enterprise ? Great God, send me ! 
And though the body lie where ocean rolls, 
Father, count me among all faithful souls I 

NoviaiBER, 1885 



FROM THE COLONY TO THE 
STATE 



UNCLE TRACY'S THANKSGIVING 

There can be no doubt but that this queer song runs back 
in time to the end of the first century of the colony. 

It is purely traditional. I heard it as early as 1825, and 
I do not believe it has ever been printed until now. 

I have no doubt as to its antiquity. It belongs before 
1689 and after I661. 

UNCLE TRACY'S THANKSGIVING. 1675? 

'T WAS up to Uncle Tracy's 
The Fifth of November, 
Last Thanksgiving night 
As I very well remember 
And there we had a Frolic, 

A Frolic indeed, 
Where we drank good full Glasses 
Of old Anise-seed. 

And there was Mr. Holmes 
And there was Peter Drew, 

And there was Seth Gilbert 
And Seth Thomas too 



30 Ballads of 

And there were too many 
Too many for to name, 

And by and by I '11 tell you how 
They carried on the Game. 

They carried on the Game 

Till 't was late in the night, 
And one pretty Girl 

Almost lost her Eyesight. 
No wonder, no wonder 

No wonder indeed, 
For she drank good full Glasses 
Of old Anise-seed. 



New England History 31 



ANNE DUDLEY 

I WAS most desirous to print here, before the date of 
Philip's War, some verses by the New England poet, Anne 
Dudley, who became by marriage Anne Bradstreet. It is she 
whom Cotton Mather calls the " tenth Muse." 

She had some ear for rhythm. She had read Du Bartas 
and deUghted in him. The same may be said of John Milton. 
Anne Dudley may have seen Milton. She was twelve years 
younger than he was. 

But alas ! I have read Anne Dudley Bradstreet' s poems, 
though not for the first time, in hope that I might find one 
line which should show that she had ever seen a hepatica, or 
a wood anemone, or bloodroot, or a ladies' slipper, or a fringed 
gentian. No ! She had only seen violets and primroses and 
roses — the conventional flowers of English poetry. And, to 
all appearances she had never seen a moccasin, or a dug-out, or 
a toboggan, or a squaw, or a pappoose. No ! Her acquaint- 
ances were of the First Monarchy and the Second Monarchy. 

I think that the only allusions in her poems which can be 
tortured into an observation of Nature or Nature's work in 
New England are these. The North Andover people may 
imagine that she has strayed to the bank of the Merrimac 
from the Phillips Brooks house. 

" Under the cooling shadow of a stately elm 

Close sate I by a goodly River's side. 
Where gliding streams the rocks did overwhelm 

A lonely place, with pleasures dignified. 
I once that lov'd the shady woods so well. 
Now thought the rivers did the trees excel!. 
And if the sun would ever shine, there would I dwell." 



32 Ballads of 



Here are the conventional references which she makes to 
flowers. "Azure violets" may pass. But "primroses" in 
the Merrimac Valley .'' Ah me ! 

" The primrose pale and azure violet 
Among the verdurous grass hath Nature set." 

For birds, she says : 

" The sweet-tongued Philomel perched o'er my head." 

But alas ! Philomel never came within three thousand 
miles of her. 

For insects on the lawn : 

" I heard the merry grasshopper then sing. 

The black clad cricket bear his second part. 
They kept one tune and played on the same string. 
Seeming to glory in their little art." 

These are the least conventional and most genuine lines 
in the volume of her poems. But grasshoppers are merry, 
and crickets are black in England. 

I go into this exhaustive review, because I suppose that I 
am now, since the death of her editor, Mr. John Harvard 
EUis, the only person who has read her poems. 

" It is proper," as one of my Zuni friends said, that I 
should say that since the death of my accomplished friend, 
Mr. Ellis, no man lives, except myself, who has fulfilled this 
pious duty. 

Let us remember that Christopher North speaks kindly of 
her. 



New England History 33 



BLOODY BROOK 

The slaughter of Lathrop with the " Flower of Essex " on 
the eighteenth of September, 1 675, was one of the most tragic 
incidents of King Philip's War. 

I wrote this ballad to read at the celebration at " Bloody 
Brook," at the anniversary of the battle in the year 1888. 

It is a good aid to memory that Philip's War broke out 
exactly a century before Lexington and Bunker Hill. The 
colony, only forty-five years old, was very near destruction. 
But the pluck of the fathers was such that they would not 
send "home " for an ounce of powder or of lead. 

It is rather curious that no allusion has been found in the 
excited literature of 1775 to the recurrence of the centennial 
anniversaries of the crisis of 1675. 

THE LAMENTABLE BALLAD OF THE BLOODY 
BROOK 

Come listen to the Story of brave Lathrop and 
his Men, — 
How they fought, how they died. 
When they marched against the Red Skins in 
the Autumn Days, and then 
How they fell, in their pride. 
By Pocumtuck Side. 



34 Ballads of 

" Who will go to Deerfield Meadows and bring 
the ripened Grain ? " 
Said old Mosely to his men in Array. 
" Take the Wagons and the Horses, and bring it 
back again ; 
But be sure that no Man stray 
All the Day, on the Way." 



Then the Flower of Essex started, with Lathrop 
at their head, 
Wise and brave, bold and true. 
He had fought the Pequots long ago, and now to 
Mosely said, 
" Be there Many, be there Few, 
I will bring the Grain to you." 



They gathered all the Harvest, and marched 
back on their Way 
Through the Woods which blazed like Fire. 
No soldier left the Line of march to wander or 
to stray. 
Till the Wagons were stalled in the Mire, 
And the beasts began to tire. 



New England History 35 

The Wagons have all forded the Brook as it 
flows, 
And then the Rear-Guard stays 
To pick the Purple Grapes that are hanging from 
the Boughs, 
When, crack ! — to their Amaze, 
A hundred Fire-locks blaze I 



Brave Lathrop, he lay dying ; but as he fell he 
cried, 
" Each man to his Tree," said he, 
" Let no one yield an Inch ; " and so the Soldier 
died ; 
And not a Man of all can see 
Where the Foe can be. 



And Philip and his Devils pour in their Shot 
so fast, 
From behind and before. 
That man after Man is shot dovi^n and breathes 
his last 
Every Man lies dead in his Gore 
To fight no more, — no more 1 



36 Ballads of 

Oh, weep, ye Maids of Essex, for the Lads who 

have died, — 
The Flower of Essex they ! 
The Bloody Brook still ripples by the black 

Mountain-side, 
But never shall they come again to see the 

ocean-tide, 
And never shall the Bridegroom return to his 

Bride, 
From that dark and cruel Day, — cruel Day ! 



New England History 37 



WILLIAM KIDD 

Our friends in New York who care at all for the history of 
the seventeenth century have sometimes intimated that the 
products of piratical adventure were to be seen in the houses 
of the well-to-do people of Boston as the end of that century 
passed by. On the other hand, the Boston historians are a 
little apt to intimate that in the lower streets of New York 
adventures were planned for seamen who did not much care 
what flag they sailed under. It is certain that those years of 
the end of that century and the beginning of the next were 
great years for piracy or for " freebooters." 

Mr. Macaulay in a chapter of his history which was printed 
after his death says, " Many of the pirates of the Indian 
Ocean, it was said, came from our North American Colonies, 
and carried back to those Colonies the spoils gained by 
crime." And he specifies New York and the Puritans of 
New England as those who profited by the ill-gotten spices 
and stuffs which the pirates had to sell. 

With regard to such suspicions, as far as New England is 
concerned, it is safe to say that there is not an old candle- 
stick or an old pistol or musket or cutlass in New England 
regarding which there is any tradition that it came from a 
buccaneer or other "freebooter." On the other hand, what 
is certain is that the " Colonial Records " are full of the efforts 
to suppress piracy, and that for some of these years at least 
the Province of Massachusetts had cruisers under its own 
commission and flag, quite regardless of home authorities, to 
keep the seas of their neighborhood free. Lord Bellomont, 
who became governor of Massachusetts and New York in 



38 Ballads of 

1695, was specially charged by William III. to suppress " free- 
booting." Bellomont commissioned a New York merchant of 
good standing, named William Kidd, to take command of a 
privateer called the Adventure Galley, which was equipped 
in London for the special purpose of seizing pirates. Kidd 
crossed the Atlantic in this vessel, and in New York found 
volunteers in abundance for her crew. In 1697 he sailed 
from the Hudson with one hundred and fifty men, and in 
July readied Madagascar. 

What happened in the Indian Ocean it is hard to tell. 
Macaulay says coolly, " The risk of being called to severe 
reckoning might not unnaturally seem small to one who had 
seen many old buccaneers living in comfort and credit at New 
York and Boston." So far as Boston is concerned I do not 
believe that Kidd had seen any such thing. It is, however, 
perhaps true, that he threw off the character of the "privateer " 
and became a pirate. But some doubt certainly is thrown on 
this charge against him, by the fact that he returned to New 
York, apparently with no fear, having burned his ship, as is 
supposed, and dismissed his men. He wrote to Bellomont, 
who was in Boston, that he had been unjustly accused, and 
offered to visit him in Boston. Bellomont replied by giving 
him an absolute safe-conduct, promising him that he could 
come to Boston and return safely to his home. Kidd came to 
Boston, he took up his quarters in the best inn in the place, 
and he called with perfect freedom at the council chamber 
again and again. Unfortunately for him and for Bellomont's 
character, orders then arrived from London that Bellomont 
should arrest him and await further orders from the Admiralty. 
Bellomont was afraid. He violated his own safe-conduct, and 
imprisoned Kidd in the Boston jail. Kidd's wife came on to 
Boston to visit him there. Kidd was sent to London and was 
hanged. 



New England History 39 

The personal correspondence between Kidd and Bellomont 
is in the Massachusetts Archives. So are Sarah Kidd's 
letters, signed with her mark because she could not write. 

The misery of it all is that the prosecution was purely a 
political prosecution. For the charge was a charge not really 
against Kidd, but against Somers, who was one of the sub- 
scribers to the Adventure Galleij enterprise. The govern- 
ment prosecuting him abandoned the charge of piracy and he 
was hanged for the murder of one of his sailors. Whether 
Kidd were unjustly sentenced or not, he was sentenced and 
he was hanged. The southern part of Rhode Island, where 
is my summer home, is honeycombed with holes which have 
been made by people who have been seeking for Kidd's 
treasure, in the two hundred years which have passed since 
he was hanged at Execution Dock. Some English ballad 
writer of the time wrote the ballad which is still sung in the 
forecastle. I have myself heard old seamen sing it when 
everything was dark around us, and a northeast fog was form- 
ing in drops upon our clothes. 

I have sometimes thought that Macaulay gave to the ballad 
rather more historical authority than it deserved. 

The reader will observe that the ballad calls the hero 
Robert Kidd, while there is no doubt that his name was 
William and that the other details of the ballad, excepting 
perhaps the death of William Moore, are untrue. 

There is a general agreement that the ship in which Kidd 
and his men returned was not the Adventure Galley but the 
Quedak, an Asiatic vessel which he had taken as a prize. A 
generation after the Whidah, supposed to be a buccaneer, was 
shipwrecked on Cape Cod. Was she the same ship .'* 



40 Ballads of 



«Ye lamentable ballad and Ye TRUE HIS- 
TORIE OF CAPTAINE ROBERT KIDD, WHO WAS 
HANGED IN CHAINS AT EXECUTION DOCK, 
FOR PIRACY AND MURDER ON Ye HIGH SEAS." 
1701 

You captains bold and brave, hear our cries, hear 
our cries. 
You captains bold and brave, hear our cries, 
You captains brave and bold, tho' you seem 
uncontroll'd. 
Don't for the sake of gold lose your souls, lose 
your souls. 
Don't for the sake of gold lose your souls. 



My name was Robert Kidd, when I sail'd, when 
I sail'd. 
My name was Robert Kidd, when I sail'd. 
My name was Robert Kidd, God's laws I did 
forbid, 
And so wickedly I did, when I sail'd. 



New England History 41 

My parents taught me well, when I sail'd, when 
I sail'd, 
My parents taught me well, when I sail'd, 
My parents taught me well to shun the gates of 
hell, 
But against them I rebell'd when I sail'd. 

I cursed my father dear, when I sail'd, when I 
sail'd, 

I cursed my father dear, when I sail'd, 
I cursed my father dear and her that did me bear 

And so wickedly did swear, when I sail'd. 

I made a solemn vow when I sail'd, when I 
sail'd, 

I made a solemn vow when I sail'd, 
I made a solemn vow, to God I would not bow. 

Nor myself one prayer allow, as I sail'd. 

I was sick and nigh to death, as I sail'd, as I 
sail'd, 
I was sick and nigh to death as I sail'd. 
And I was sick and nigh to death, and vowed at 
every breath. 
To walk in wisdom's ways as I sail'd. 



42 Ballads of 

I thought I was undone as I sail'd, as I sail'd, 
I thought I was undone as I sail'd, 

I thought I was undone and my wicked glass 
had run, 
But my health did soon return as I sail'd. 

My repentance lasted not, as I sail'd, as I sail'd, 
My repentance lasted not, as I sail'd. 

My repentance lasted not, my vows I soon for- 
got, 
Damnation 's my just lot, as I sail'd. 

I steer'd from sound to sound, as I sail'd, as I 
sail'd, 
I steer'd from sound to sound, as I sail'd, 
I steer'd from sound to sound, and many ships I 
found. 
And most of them I burn'd as I sail'd. 

I spy'd three ships from France, as I sail'd, as I 
sail'd, 
I spy'd three ships from France, as I sail'd, 
I spy'd three ships from France, to them I did 
advance, 
And took them all by chance, as I sail'd. 



New England History 43 

I spy'd three sliips of Spain, as I sail'd, as I 
sail'd, 
I spy'd three ships of Spain, as I sail'd, 
I spy'd three ships of Spain, I fired on them 
amain, 
Till most of them were slain, as I sail'd. 

I 'd a bible in my hand when I sail'd, when I 
sail'd, 
I 'd a bible in my hand when I sail'd, 
I 'd a bible in my hand by my father's great 
command, 
And I sunk it in the sand when I sail'd. 

I murdered William Moore, as I sail'd, as I 
sail'd, 
I murdered William Moore, as I sail'd, 
I murdered William Moore, and left him in his 
gore, 
Not many leagues from shore as I sail'd. 

And being cruel still, as I sail'd, as I sail'd. 

And being cruel still, as I sail'd, 
And being cruel still, my gunner I did kill. 

And his precious blood did spill, as I sail'd. 



44 Ballads of 

My mate was sick and died as I sail'd, as I sail'd, 
My mate was sick and died as I sail'd, 

My mate was sick and died, which me much 
terrified. 
When he called me to his bedside as I sail'd. 



And unto me he did say, see me die, see me die, 
And unto me did he say see me die, 

And unto me did say, take warning now by me, 
There comes a reckoning day, you must die. 



You cannot then withstand, when you die, when 
you die. 
You cannot then withstand when you die. 
You cannot then withstand the judgments of 
God's hand. 
But bound then in iron bands, you must die. 



I 'd ninety bars of gold, as I sail'd, as I sail'd, 
I 'd ninety bars of gold, as I sail'd, 

I 'd ninety bars of gold, and dollars manifold, 
With riches uncontroll'd, as I sail'd. 



New England History 45 

Then fourteen ships I saw, as I sail'd, as I 
sail'd. 
Then fourteen ships I saw as I sail'd, 
Then fourteen ships I saw and brave men they 
are, 
Ah I they were too much for me as I sail'd. 

Thus being o'ertaken at last, I must die, I must 
die. 

Thus being o'ertaken at last, I must die. 
Thus being o'ertaken at last and into prison cast, 

And sentence being pass'd, I must die. 

Farewell the raging sea, I must die, I must die, 
Farewell the raging main, I must die, 

Farewell the raging main, to Turkey, France, 
and Spain, 
I ne'er shall see you again, I must die. 

To Newgate now I 'm cast, and must die, and 
must die. 
To Newgate now I 'm cast, and must die. 
To Newgate I am cast, with a sad and heavy 
heart. 
To receive my just desert, I must die. 



46 Ballads of 

To Execution Dock I must go, I must go, 

To Execution Dock I must go, 
To Execution Dock will many thousands flock, 

But I must bear the shock, I must die. 

Come all you young and old, see me die, see me 
die? 
Come all you young and old, see me die, 
Come all you young and old, you 're welcome to 
my gold, 
For by it I Ve lost my soul, and must die. 

Take warning now by me, for I must die, for I 
must die. 
Take warning now by me, for I must die. 

Take warning now by me, and shun bad company, 
Lest you come to hell with me, for I must die. 
Lest you come to hell with me, for I must die. 



New England History 47 



ROBINSON CRUSOE 

The greatest of modern romances has an American hero. 
For Robinson Crusoe, who had left England when he was 
scarcely twenty-one years old, landed in America when he 
was about twenty-three. He was shipwrecked on his island 
about the time when Richard Cromwell retired from the 
government of England. Crusoe returned to establish him- 
self when he was an old man, so to speak, arriving in England 
on the week when William III. entered London. 

I suppose that by these definite dates Defoe meant to 
show that a true-born Englishman could not live in England 
while the Stuarts sat on the throne. 

In his second voyage, in the year l695, Crusoe came as 
near us as the banks of Newfoundland, and there is an inti- 
mation that if thus and so had happened he might have 
looked in on us in the " northern parts of Virginia." One 
may add that Daniel Defoe had a son in North Carolina. 
And the precision of his narrative of white slaveiy in his 
novel of "Captain Jack" makes one think that Daniel Defoe 
himself had visited America. But the North Carolina people 
do not find him or his son. 

Many imitations of Robinson's life have been written, 
but the " New England Crusoe " is yet in the inkstand. 
The song which I reprint is still to be found on the wharves, 
in a broadside, with a picture of Robinson carrying a kid on 
his shoulders. It was written in the latter part of the 



48 Ballads of 

eighteenth century, for Mr. Cussans, an English actor, and 
was for a century a favorite song between acts on the Eng- 
lish and American stage. 

When I was a lad, I had cause to be sad, 

My grandfather I did lose, Oh ! 
I '11 bet you a cann, you have heard of the 
man, 
His name was Robinson Crusoe. 
Chorus. — Oh ! poor Robinson Crusoe, 
Tink a tang a tang. 
Oh ! poor Robinson Crusoe. 

You have read in a book of a voyage he took, 
How the howling whirlwinds blew so ; 

The ship with a shock, drove plump on a rock, 
Near drowning poor Robinson Crusoe. 

Poor soul, none but he, remain'd on the sea, 
Ah I fate, fate ! how couldest thou do so ! 

Till ashore he was thrown, on an island unknown. 
Oh ! poor Robinson Crusoe. 

He wanted to eat, and he sought for some meat. 
But the cattle away from him flew so. 

That but for his gun, he 'd been surely undone, 
Oh 1 poor Robinson Crusoe. 



New England History 49 

But he sav'd from on board, an old gun and 
sword, 
And another odd matter or two so ; 
That by dint of his thrift, he manag'd to 
shift, 
Well done poor Robinson Crusoe. 

And he happen'd to save, from the merciless 
wave, 
A poor parrot, T assure you, it was so ; 
That when he come home, from a wearisome 
roam. 
She 'd cry out, " Poor Robinson Crusoe." 

He got all in the wood, that ever he could, 
And he stuck it together with glue, so 

That he made him a hut, in which he might 
put 
The body of Robinson Crusoe. 

He wore an old cap, and a coat with long 
nap. 
And a beard as long as a Jew, so 
That, by all that is evil, he look'd like the 
devil. 

More than like Robinson Crusoe. 

4 



50 Ballads of 

And then his man Friday, kept the hut neat and 
tidy, 
To be sure 't was his business to do so ; 
They were friendly together hke neighbor and 
brother, 
Liv'd Friday and Robinson Crusoe. 

At length, an English sail, came near, within hail, 

Oh, then he took to his canoe, so 
That on reaching the ship, they gave him a trip, 

To the country of Robinson Crusoe. 



New England History 51 



THE QUEEN'S ROAD 

To any one who lives in the " South County " it is needless 
to tell what we mean there when we speak of the " Queen's 
Road." But alas ! There are some people who have not even 
heard "whether there be any South County." To them let it 
be said that Rhode Island, though a small State apparently, 
is really three States : — 

1. Providence Plantations. 

2. Newport and Rhode Island as above. (See Adrian 
Block.) 

3. The King's Province. Capital, King's Town. This is 
the South County. 

Now through the King's Proxince passes the old seaboard 
road from Newport to New York, — on which George Fox 
travelled in l672, on which Madam Knight rode on a pillion, 
and where Franklin carried the mail, on certain impossible 
hypotheses. And in the reign of good Queen Anne, the niece 
of King Charles, for whom the King's Province was named, 
this road was made sure. Before that time it had been only 
an Indian trail. It is, therefore, by all people who are more 
than eighty years old, called the " Queen's Road." And even 
young people call the wild carrot, when in July it blossoms 
with all its summer beauty, by the pretty name of " Queen 
Anne's Lace." But we must not give to the ballad any his- 
torical importance. 



52 Ballads of 

Old Queen Anne, she lay a-dying, 

Oh, sad to see, 
On her silver bedstead lying, 
While the golden sands are flying. 

Ah, weary me ! 

On her right the priest is kneeling, 

With his Latin prayer ; 
To the Queen of Heaven appealing. 
That this Queen, whose life is steaHng 
Far from earth or earthly feeling. 
May quickly name her heir. 

At her left the bishop praying, — 

And the words he said : 
" Recollect, Great God, the wonder 
When her fleets with bolts of thunder 
Drove the wicked Papists under. 
And their armies fled." 

Sudden steps surprise the palace ! — 
Vain the sentry at the wall is ; — 
The Messenger upsets the chalice ! — 

Roger Williams' son 
Scornfully upsets the chalice. 
And defies the churchman's malice. — 



New England History 53 

He has words to cheer the dying 
On her silver bedstead lying. 
Hear him in her chamber crying 
That her work is done. 



O'er the dying queen he bended, 

Screaming in her ear, 
** Great Queen Anne, your road is mended. 
From the floods the track 's defended. 
All your money is expended. 
But the task has been well ended, 

And the road is there. 

" From Block-house on Tower Hill," 

(Screaming in her ear,) 
" By Willow Dell to Perryville, 
By Loisha's house to Cross's Mill, 
Queen Anne's road is built with skill, — 

Tell me if you hear ! " 

See the Queen's dim eyeballs glisten, 

Rising in her bed ; 
How her frail form bends to listen 

To the words he said. 



54 Ballads of 

" Williams, say those words again I 
Those are words that conquer pain I 
All the work explain — explain — 
Say again — say — say — again — " 
And the Queen is dead. 

Rose the Bishop from his kneehng, 
Ceased the priest from his appealing 

To the Holy Rood, 
Vain was Satan's thunderous levin, 
To her failure pardon 's given 
For Queen Anne has gone to heaven 

On the old Queen's Road. 



New England History ^§ 



THE FRANKLIN BALLADS 

Benjamin Franklin plays an important part in our ballad 
history as in all our history. 

He is not generally remembered as a poet. Yet in his 
matchless autobiography, with all his own humor, he tells us 
how narrow was his escape from a poet's life. When he was 
apprentice to his brother in the office of the New England 
Courant, it so fell out that Mr. Worthylake, the keeper of the 
lighthouse, and his daughters came in a boat from the light- 
house to the town to attend the divine service on Sunday. 
It was on the third of November, 1718, as they attempted 
to return from the service, a squall of wind struck the boat 
and they were all drowned. 

An event so sad arrested the quick attention of the Courant 
people, and the apprentice, Benjamin, was set to " composing " 
a ballad on the lamentable tragedy. This he did literally. 
With the compositor's stick in his hand, he set up the verses 
at the case, and the type was lifted on the stone and locked 
up without pen or pencil or paper. 

The press was worked by the hand which had composed 
the ballad. And the apprentice boy who had printed it was 
sent into the streets to cry it and to sell it. 

It had great success, very great success. And so was it, 
that when not long after the Courant received news that the 
famous Rover Black Beard had been taken and beheaded, 
the boy composed another ballad with equal success. 

It was then that he had the critical conversation with 
his father which changed the current of his life. And who 



56 Ballads of 

sliall say how much more it changed — " what might have 
been " ? 

For fifty years, more or less, I had the hope of disinterring 
these Frankhn ballads. I came so near it one day, that 
when I asked the ballad monger on Tremont Street, by the 
Albany road, if he had the ballad of " Black Beard," he said, 
" No ! Mr. Hale, but I will have it this afternoon ! " 

But alas ! — he did not have it that afternoon — and in all 
his life after he did not find it. 

But I lived on, — in the hope that it might be found. 
For my dear friend. Dr. Hayward, recollected this verse of 
^a ballad of Black Beard. 

" So each man to his gun ! 
For the work must be done. 

With musket, sword, and pistol, — 
And when we can no more strike a blow 
We 'II fire the powder, and up we '11 go. 
'T is better to swim in the sea below 
Than to hang in the air and feed the crow. 

Said jolly Ned Teach of Bristol. " 

Dr. Hayward remembered this as early as 1 840 ; probably 
it belongs much earlier. It is so good that I carried it in 
my head for twenty or thirty years, quite sure that it was 
Franklin's. 

But no ! — alas and alas ! Mr. Ashton in his " Real 
Sailor Songs " disinterred the original Franklin, — I suppose 
in the British Museum. It is very bad, — as bad as it could 
be. But it bears every mark of being the original by Ben- 
jamin Franklin. 

Black Beard was a famous pirate who was met and killed 
by a king's sloop under Maynard. You may see the island 
on which his head was left to terrify on-lookers, as you stand 
in front of Dr. Frissell's house at Hampton G^llege. It is 
called Black Beard's Island. His name was Ned Teach. 



New England History ^y 



THE DOWNFALL OF PIRACY 

WiLi. you liear of a bloody Battle, 

Lately fought upon the Seas, 
It will make your Ears to rattle. 

And your Admiration cease ; 
Have you heard of Teach the Rover, 

And his Knavery on the Main ; 
How of Gold he was a Lover, 

How he lov'd all ill got Gain. 

When the Act of Grace appeared. 

Captain Teach with all his Men, 
Unto Carolina steered. 

Where they kindly us'd him then ; 
There he marry 'd to a Lady, 

And gave her five hundred Pound, 
But to her he prov'd unsteady. 

For he soon march'd off the Ground. 

And returned, as I tell you. 

To his Robbery as before, 
Burning, sinking Ships of value. 

Filling them with Purple Gore ; 



58 Ballads of 

When he was at Carolina, 
There the Governor did send, 

To the Governor of Virginia, 
That he might assistance lend. 

Then the Man of War's Commander, 

Two small Sloops he fitted out. 
Fifty Men he put on board, Sir, 

Who resolv'd to stand it out : 
The Lieutenant he commanded 

Both the Sloops, and you shall hear. 
How before he landed, 

He suppress'd them without fear. 

Valiant Maynard as he sailed, 

Soon the Pirate did espy. 
With his Trumpet he then hailed. 

And to him they did reply : 
Captain Teach is our Commander, 

Maynard said, he is the Man, 
Whom I am resolv'd to hang. Sir, 

Let him do the best he can. 

Teach replyed unto Maynard, 
You no Quarter here shall see. 

But be hang'd on the Mainyard, 
You and all your Company ; 



New England History 59 

Maynard said, I none desire, 

Of such Knaves as thee and thine, 

None I '11 give. Teach then replycd. 
My Boys give me a Glass of Wine. 

He took the Glass, and drank Damnation 

Unto Maynard and his Crew ; 
To himself and Generation, 

Then the Glass away he threw ; 
Brave Maynard was resolv'd to have him, 

Tho' he 'd Cannons nine or ten ; 
Teach a broadside quickly gave him. 

Killing sixteen valiant Men. 

Maynard boarded him, and to it 

They fell with Sword and Pistol too ; 
They had Courage, and did show it, 

Killing of the Pirate's Crew. 
Teach and Maynard on the Quarter, 

Fought it out most manfully, 
Maynard s Sword did cut him shorter. 

Losing his head, he there did die. 

Every Sailor fought while he, Sir, 
Power had to wield the Sword, 

Not a Coward could you see. Sir, 
Fear was driven from abroad : 



6o Ballads of 

Wounded Men on both Sides fell, Sir, 
'T was a doleful Sight to see. 

Nothing could their Courage quell. Sir, 
O, they fought courageously. 

When the bloody Fight was over, 

We 're informed by a Letter writ, 
TeacJis Head was made a Cover, 

To the Jack Staff of the Ship : 
Thus they sailed to Virginia, 

And when they the Story told, 
How they kill'd the Pirates many. 

They 'd Applause from young and old. 



New England History 6i 



FRANKLIN'S WIT 

And here will be a fit place for the other Franklin poems. 
They belong after his residence was established in Philadel- 
phia, on one of his long journeys, by the north side of Long 
Island Sound to Newport and Boston. The first is at least as 
old as 1818. I take it from the Connecticut Gazette of 
1818, and it is perhaps the work of one of the wits who made 
Hartford so distinguished a literary centre in that time. I 
am sure that the other is more modem. 

Franklin, one night, cold, freezing to his 

skin, 
Stopped on his journey at a pubHc inn ; 
Rejoiced, perceives the kindhng flames arise, 
But luckless sage, perceives -with distant eyes 
A motley crowd monopolize the heat. 
Each firm as Banquo's ghost, maintains his 

seat. 

" Ho ! " cries the doctor never at a loss, 

" Landlord, a peck of oysters for my horse." 



62 Ballads of 

" Your horse eat oysters ? " cries the wondering 

host. 
" Give him a peck, you '11 see they won't be lost." 
The crowd astonished, rush into the stall : 
'* A horse eat oysters — what with shells and all ? " 

Meantime our traveller, as the rest retire. 

Picks the best seat at the deserted fire ; 

A place convenient for the cunning elf 

To roast his oysters and to warm himself. 

The host returned — " Your horse won't eat them, 

sir. 
" Won't eat good oysters ! he 's a simple cur ; 
I know who will," he adds in merry mood ; 
"Hand them to me, a horse don't know what's 

good." 



New England History 63 



AT THE INN 

The historical authority for this ballad is in that earlier 
excellent ballad, printed in the Connecticut Gazette in 1818. 
I wish I knew who wrote it. 

I am told that the story is more than two thousand years 
old. The scene must have been between New York and 
Newport, and I took the liberty to place it at Willow Dell. 

It was JMr. Benjamin Franklin, a-carrying of 
the mail 
(Sing ho, for the tallow-chandler's brother !) ; 

He had to be at Newport Friday morning with- 
out fail 
(Sing rather, t 'other, pother, fuss, and bother !) 

When passing Trustum Pond, as he rode with 
might and main, 

He was soaked to the skin by the thunder and 
the rain ; 

And when he came to Dead INIan's Brook his 
pony stumbled in. 

And tumbled Mr. Franklin off, and wet him 
through again 
(Sing ho, for the tallow-chandler's mother !). 



64 Ballads of 

*' Speed up," he cried, " and bring me to the inn 

at Willow Dell" 
(Sing " ho, for the tallow-chandler's cousin ") ; 
" Ben Seegar there shall give you oats and Hiram 

groom you well," 
(Sing "ten, eleven, twelve, a baker's dozen"). 
So quick they strode along the road, and here he 

entered in. 
And first, of course, he left his horse all wetted 

to the skin. 
But lo ! so many people were around the land- 
lord's fii'e 
That he was forced to stand outside and could n't 

come no nigher 
(Sing "five and four and two and one 's a 

dozen "). 



" Good friend," said Mr. Franklin, as if it were 
of course 
(Sing " Trustum Bay and lobster-claw and 
clam-shell "), 
" I wish that you would give a peck of oysters to 
my horse " 
(Sing "lobster-claw and pickerel and clam- 
shell"). 



New England History 65 

The landlord heard without a word ; and quick 

as he was able 
He shelled the fish and took the dish of oysters 

to the stable ; 
And with surprise in all their eyes, the people 

left the stranger, 
And crossed the yard in tempest hard, to crowd 

around the manger. 
Ben Franklin, he cared not to see, but took the 

warmest seat. 
And hung his coat above the fire, and sat and 

dried his feet 
(Sing "centipede and crocodile and bomb- 
shell"). 



Five minutes more, and through the door came 

Mr. Landlord, swearing 
(Sing "OUver, Tom Nopes, and Benjamine 

Seegar ") ; 
And after him came all the folks, a-wondering 

and a-staring 
(Sing "Oliver, Queen Moll, and Colonel 

Wager "). 
" Your horse won't touch the oysters, sir, although 

they 're fresh and new, sir." 



66 Ballads of 

" He won't ? " asked Mr. Franklin ; " That 's no 

offence to you, sir. 
You see he does n't know what 's good ; but if he 

don't, I do, sir " 

(Sing " rheumatiz and gout and shaking 
ager"); 

If he had tried your oysters fried he might not 

then refuse 'em. 
But I will sit and toast my feet while Mistress 

Bowers stews 'em. 



New England History 67 



BLACK BEARD 

Somewhere in the lobes of some old lady's memory is the 
rest of what we connoisseurs call " Dr. Hay ward's ballad/' 
quoted above. It is too good to be lost. But, while I have 
begged antiquarians to find it, I have not succeeded. Still 
there is a hope that it is in an old school reader. Who 
remembers it .'' 

Here are, however, some verses by some of my staff who 
have kindly volunteered in a service which requires new 
rhymes for " Bristol." They have no historical value. 

I 'll comb out the beard of the man that 's afeared 
Be he Enghshman, Dutchman, or Spaniard ! 

By God he shall swing 

At the end of a string. 
If I stretch out the bow-chaser lanyard ! 
For we have no use here, for milk sops or fear, 

Says Jolly Ned Teach of Bristol. 

Who will fool with the girls 
Who will dive for the pearls 
In the Spaniard's clear water of crystal ? 



68 Ballads of 

It is Black Beard, you know. 
And Black Beard will show 
The mountains of gold and silver untold, 
Says Jolly Ned Teach of Bristol. 



Who will fool with the girls 
Or dive for the pearls 
In the Spaniard's clear waters of crystal, 
And when we have done 
With that sort of fun, 
Have flirted with all, and have kissed all. 
Then up with the kedges and off for the sea. 
To see in what water the Gold Fishes be. 
Says Jolly Ned Teach of Bristol. 



How the Admiral swore 

When he swaggered on shore. 
For he thought he was going to enlist all 
The hearties so free who follow the sea. 
But the Admiral found he had missed all ! 

For the gentlemen free had all rather be 

Where the guineas are gold and the liquor 
is free ! 

Said Jolly Ned Teach of Bristol. 



New England History 69 



"SONG OF LOVEWELL'S FIGHT." 

This ballad is one of the genuine ballads^ one of the oldest 
there is^ composed, it is said, the year of the fight. The 
author is unknown. It is printed in " Farmer and Moore's 
Historical Collections." The historical facts here stated are 
no doubt reliable. The date is May, 1725. 

Of worthy Captain Lovewell I purpose now to 

sing, 
How valiantly he served his country and his 

king; 
He and his valiant soldiers did range the woods 

full wide, 
And hardships they endured to quell the Indian's 

pride. 

'Twas nigh unto Pigwacket, on the eighth day 
of May, 

They spied a rebel Indian soon after break of day ; 

He on a bank was walking, upon a neck of land 

Which leads into a pond, as we 're made to un- 
derstand. 



JO Ballads of 

Our men resolved to have him, and travelled two 

miles round 
Until they met the Indian, who boldly stood his 

ground, 
Then spake up Captain Lovewell, "Take your 

good heed," says he ; 
" This rogue is to decoy us, I very plainly see. 



" The Indians lie in ambush, in some place nigh 

at hand. 
In order to surround us upon this neck of land ; 
Therefore we '11 march in order, and each man 

leave his pack 
That we may boldly fight them when they shaU 

us attack." 



They came unto the Indian who did them thus 

defy ; 
As soon as they come nigh him, two guns he did 

let fly, 
Which wounded Captain Lovewell, and likewise 

one man more ; 
But when this rogue was running, they laid him 

in his gore. 



New England History 71 

Then having scalped the Indian, they went back 

to the spot 
Where they had laid their packs down, but there 

they found them not ; 
For the Indians having spied them when they 

them down did lay. 
Did seize them for their plunder, and carry them 

away. 



These rebels lay in ambush, this very place 

near by. 
So that an English soldier did one of them 

espy, 
And cried out, " Here 's an Indian I " with that 

they started out 
As fiercely as old lions, and hideously did 

shout. 

With that our valiant English all gave a loud 

huzza. 
To show the rebel Indians they feared them not 

a straw ; 
So now the fight began as fiercely as could be ; 
The Indians ran up to them, but soon were 

forced to flee. 



72 Ballads of 

Then spoke up Captain Lovewell when first the 

fight began, 
" Fight on my gallant heroes I you see they fall 

like rain." 
For as we are informed the Indians were so 

thick, 
A man could scarcely fire a gun, and not some 

of them hit. 

Then did the rebels try their best our soldiers to 

surround, 
But they could not accomplish it because there 

was a pond, 
To which our men retreated, and covered all the 

rear, 
The rogues were forced to flee them, although 

they skulked for fear. 

Two bogs that were behind them so close to- 
gether lay. 

Without being discovered they could not get 
away ; 

Therefore our valiant English they travelled in a 
row. 

And at a handsome distance, as they were wont 
to go. 



New England History 73 

'T was ten o'clock in the morning when first the 

fight begun, 
And fiercely did continue until the setting sun, 
Excepting that the Indians some hours before 

't was night. 
Drew off into the bushes, and ceased a while to 

fight. 

But soon again returned in fierce and furious 

mood. 
Shouting as in the morning, but yet not half so 

loud. 
For, as we are informed, so thick and fast they 

fell. 
Scarce twenty of their number at night did get 

home well. 



And that our valiant English 'til midnight there 

did stay 
To see whether the rebels would have another 

fray; 
But they no more returning, they made off 

toward their home. 
And brought away their wounded as far as they 

could come. 



74 Ballads of 

Of all our valiant English there were but thirty- 
four, 

And of the rebel Indians there were about four- 
score. 

And sixteen of our English did safely home 
return, 

The rest were killed and wounded for which we 
all must mourn. 



Our worthy Captain Lovewell among them there 

did die, 
They killed Lieutenant Robbins, and wounded 

good young Frye, 
Who was our English chaplain, he many Indians 

flew. 



Young FuUam, too, I '11 mention, because he 

fought so well. 
Endeavoring to save a man, a sacrifice he fell. 
And yet our valiant Englishmen in fight were 

ne'er dismayed. 
But still they kept their motion, and Wyman 

captain made. 



New England History y^ 

Who shot the old Chief Paugus, which did the 

foe defeat, 
Then set his men in order, and brought off the 

retreat, 
And, braving many dangers and hardships by the 

way, 
They safe arrived at Dunstable the thirteenth 

day of May. 



76 Ballads of 



FROM POTOMAC TO MERRIMAC 

February 11, 1732 

i. potomac side 

Do you know how the people of all the land 
Knew at last that the time was at hand 
When He should be sent to give command 
To armies and people, to father and son ! 
How the glad tidings of joy should run 
Which tell of the birth of Washington ? 



Three women keep watch of the midnight sky 

Where Potomac ripples below ; 
They watch till the light in the window hard by 
The birth of the child shall show. 
Is it peace ? Is it strife ? 
Is it death ? Is it life ? 
The light in the window shall show 1 
Weal or woe I 
We shall know I 



New England History jj 

The women have builded a signal pile 

For the birthday's welcome flame, 
That the light may show for many a mile 
To tell when the baby came I 
And south and north 
The word go forth 
That the boy is born 
On that blessed morn ; 
The boy of deathless fame 1 



II. SIGNAL FIRES 

The watchmen have waited on Capitol Hill 
And they light the signal flame ; 

And at Baltimore Bay they waited till 
The welcome tidings came ; 

And then across the starlit night, 

At the head of Elk the joyful light 
Told to the Quaker town the story 
Of new-born life and coming glory ! 
To Trenton Ferry and Brooklyn Height 
They sent the signal clear and bright, 
And far away. 
Before the day, 



78 Ballads of 

To Kaatskill and Grey lock the joyful flame 
And everywhere the message came, 

As the signal flew 

The people knew 
That the man of men was born I 



III. MERRIMAC SIDE, AND AGIOCHOOK 

So it is, they say, that the men in the bay, 

In winter's ice and snow. 
See the welcome light on Wachusett Height 
While the Merrimac rolls below. 
The cheery fire 
Rose higher and higher, 
Monadnock and Carrigain catch the flame, 
And on and on, and on it came. 
And as men look 

Far away in the north 
The word goes forth, 
To Agiochook. 
The welcome fire 
Flashed higher and higher 
To our mountain ways. 

And the dome, and Moat and Pequawket 
blaze I 



New England History 79 

So the farmers in the Intervale 
See the light which shall never fail, 
The beacon light which shines to tell 
To all the world to say 

That the boy has been born 
On that winter's morn 
By Potomac far away. 
Whose great command 
Shall bless that land 
Whom the land shall bless 
In joy and distress 
Forever and a day ! 



8o Ballads of 



LOUISBURG 

In 1745 William Pepperell led the New England seamen 
to their eventful attack upon Louisburg. In the success of 
this attack was foreshadowed the success of the American 
Revolution. A Boston paper of that day contains these 
stately verses which seem worth copying. 

Neptune and Mars in Council sate 

To humble France's pride, 
Whose vain unbridled insolence 

All other Powers defied. 

The gods having sat in deep debate 

Upon the puzzling theme. 
Broke up perplexed and both agreed 

Shirley should form the scheme. 

Shirley, with Britain's glory fired, 
Heaven's favoring smile implored : 

" Let Louisburg return," — he said, 
" Unto its ancient Lord." 



New England History 8i 

At once the Camp and Fleet were filled 

With Britain's loyal sons, 
Whose hearts are filled with generous strife 

T' avenge their Country's wrongs. 

With Liberty their breasts are filled, 

Fair Liberty 's their shield ; 
'T is Liberty their banner waves 

And hovers o'er their field. 

Louis ! — behold the unequal strife, 

Thy slaves in walls immured ! 
While George's sons laugh at those walls — 

Of victory assured. 

One key to your oppressive pride 
Your Western Dunkirk 's gone ; 

So Pepperell and Warren bade 
And what they bade was done ! 

Forbear, proud Prince, your gasconades, 

Te Deums cease to sing, — 
When Britons fight the Grand Monarque 

Must yield to Britain's King. 

Boston, December, 1745 



82 Ballads of 



DANVILLE'S FLEET 

I SUPPOSE that the world never saw any man more mad, as 
the vernacular would say, than Louis XV. when he heard of 
the loss of Louisburg. 

To avenge it, he sent under D'Anville the largest fleet 
which had ever crossed the Atlantic, in 1746. The English 
government was asleep and made no effort to arrest its 
progress. 

Longfellow's ballad, which he calls the ''Ballad of the 
French Fleet," tells its history. Men who know say to me 
that on a clear day if you look down into a smooth sea, off 
Cape Sable, you may see the wrecks as they lie there. 

A BALLAD OF THE FRENCH FLEET 

I 

A FLEET with flags arrayed 

Sailed from the port of Brest, 
And the Admiral's ship displayed 

The signal : " Steer south-west." 
For this Admii'al d'Anville 

Had sworn by cross and crown 
To ravage with fire and steel 

Our helpless Boston Town. 



jp-n™ 




New England History 83 

II 

There were rumors in the street, 

In the houses there was fear 
Of the coming of the fleet, 

And the danger hovering near ; 
And while from mouth to mouth 

Spread the tidings of dismay, 
I stood in the Old South, 

Saying humbly : " Let us pray." 

Ill 

" O Lord ! we would not advise ; 

But if, in thy providence, 
A tempest should arise 

To drive the French fleet hence. 
And scatter it far and wide, 

Or sink it in the sea. 
We should be satisfied, 

And thine the glory be." 

IV 

This was the prayer I made. 
For my soul was all on flame ; 

And even as I prayed 

The answering tempest came. 



84 Ballads of 

It came with a mighty power, 
Shaking the windows and walls, 

And tolling the bell in the tower 
As it tolls at funerals. 



The lightning suddenly 

Unsheathed its flaming sword, 
And I cried : " Stand still and see 

The salvation of the Lord ! " 
The heavens were black with cloud, 

The sea was white with hail. 
And ever more fierce and loud 

Blew the October gale. 



VI 

The fleet it overtook. 

And the broad sails in the van 
Like the tents of Cushan shook. 

Or the curtains of Midian. 
Down on the reeling decks 

Crashed the o'erwhelming seas ; 
Ah, never were there wrecks 

So pitiful as these ! 



New England History 85 

VII 

Like a potter s vessel broke 

The great ships of the Hne ; 
They were carried away as a smoke, 

Or sank Hke lead in the brine. 
O T^ord ! before thy path 

They vanished and ceased to be, 
When thou didst walk in wrath 

With thine horses through the sea. 



This ballad is according to me the best of the American 
ballads. Mi*. Longfellow wrote it at the request of the Old 
South Committee as his contribution, which proved invalu- 
able, for the effort for saving the Old South Meeting House 
after the Boston fire. The ballad is a really good historical 
account of what happened. Prince was preaching in the after- 
noon of a Fast Day ordered by Governor Shirley on the occa- 
sion of the expectation of D'Anville's Fleet. All the train 
bands of Massachusetts were encamped on Boston Common 
at the time. The typhoon described swept over the Meeting 
House, so that old men half a century afterwards remembered 
the storm. 

It overtook D'Anville's Fleet off Cape Sable, and as I have 
said the ships lie there till this day. 

Much of the imagery of Mr. Longfellow's ballad is taken 
from Prince's Thanksgiving Sermon of the same year in which 
he himself describes the storm. This sermon was reprinted 
in 1774 "to encourage the people of God under the execu- 
tion of the Boston Port Bill." 



86 Ballads of 



THE BALLAD OF SPRINGFIELD ^ 
MOUNTAIN. August 7, yS^l ^ 

This ballad belonging to the year 1773 has often been 
commented and improved upon. The revision here given is 
that reproduced by Dr. Stebbins, and is, I think, as accurate 
as any text that can be now constructed. 



ELEGY ON THE YOUNG MAN BITTEN BY A 
RATTLESNAKE 



" On Springfield mountains there did dwell 
A likely youth who was knowne full well 
Lieutenant Mirick 's onley sone 
A likely youth nigh twenty one. 

II 

" One friday morning he did go 
in to the medow and did moe 
A round or two then he did feal 
A pisin sarpent at his heal. 



New England History 87 



III 



" When he received his dedly wond 
he dropt his sithe a pon the ground 
And strate for home wase his intent 
Cahng aloude stil as he went 



IV 



" tho all around his voys was hered 
but none of his friends to him apiere 
they thot it wase some workmen calld 
and there poor Timothy alone must fall 



" So soon his Carful father went 
to seek his son with discontent 
and there hes fond onley son he found 
ded as a stone a pon the ground 

VI 

" And there he lay down sopose to rest 
with both his hands Acrost his brest 
his mouth and eyes Closed fast 
And there poor man he slept his last 



88 Ballads of New England History 



VII 



" his father vieude his track with great consarn 
Where he had ran across the corn 
uneven tracks where he did go 
did apear to stagger to and frow 



VIII 



The seventh of August sixty-one 

this fatal axsident was done 

Let this a warning be to all 

to be prepared when God does call." 



" I hardly overstated the variety of claimants, or rather 
authors, to whom this Elegy (?) is attributed, to Daniel or 
Jesse Carpenter, to a young lady to whom young Merrick was 
engaged, and to Nathan Torrey. The latter has the honor 
of authorship, if any reliance can be placed upon the most 
direct and authentic tradition on the subject. The original 
has been tampered with by editors. I have done my best to 
approach the author's copy." — Dr. Stebbins's address at 
Wilbraham. 



THE OTHER HALF 



THE OTHER HALF 

We have come to an end of our songs and ballads of the 
preparation of the Pilgrims, of the Colonies, and of the 
Province. 

There is yet to be written the ballad of Boston Bay, when, 
in 1747, the British Admiral impressed the Boston sailors and 
had to give them up again. But it is not in this inkstand, and 
I do not know who will write it. 

With 1770 we come to the turning-point: Red-coats in 
garrison at Boston ; half the men you meet in the street in 
soldier's uniform, — " Lobster backs " we call them, for we 
have never seen a soldier before, unless he were one of our 
own boys from our own train bands, soldiering because we 
needed him and told him to take his gun and his powder- 
horn. Even then his coat was blue. 

In 1859, nearly ninety years after this central date of 
1770, I crossed the ocean in the steamboat Europa, with 
some accomplished English officers. One night some of 
them sang on deck, among other things, the camp song of 
"The British Grenadiers," with the words then new, which 
fitted the air of the song to the battles of Alma, Inkerman, 
and the rest of the Crimea. They were interested to find 
that my version of the song was nearly a hundred years 
older. I have often been sung to sleep by it, and I have 
sung other children to sleep with it, as perhaps I may yet 
sing grandchildren to sleep. So, I will print it here as a New 
England reminiscence of Boston at " the North End " some- 
where between 1770 and 1775. 



92 Ballads of 

I may as well say here that the word " British " was in 
familiar use in England and Scotland during the middle of the 
eighteenth century^ after the English and Scotch union. 
You find it in Fielding and Smollett, in Boswell and Dr. 
Johnson. It was in use here in the time of the Stamp Act 
and of the Revolution. The familiar use of the word died 
out in England, until within a few years just past, when it 
has come up again. But through the nineteenth century, it 
was much more common in America than in England. 

English and Colonial writers made the anomalous word 
" Britisher" out of it. But I never heard this used in New 
England, and I do not believe that it ever was used here. 



THE BRITISH GRENADIER 

I 

Come, come fill up your glasses, 
And drink a health to those 

Who carry caps and pouches,^ 
And wear their looped clothes.^ 

1 I suppose *' pouches " to be a memorial of the time when the 
grenadier actually carried a hand grenade to be used as the name 
implies. 

2 In Gay's Pastoral, " The Shepherd's Week," the Shepherd says, 

" I sold my sheep, and lambkins too. 
For silver loops and garment blue ; 

So forth I far'd to court with speed, 
Of soldier's drum withouten dreed ; 
For peace allays the shepherd's fear 
Of wearing cap of grenadier." 

He does this that he may go to CJourt. 



New England History 93 

For be you AVhig or Tory, 

Or any mortal thing, 
Be sure that you give glory 

To George, our gracious King. 
For if you prove rebellious, 

He '11 thunder in your ears 
Huzza ! Huzza ! Huzza ! Huzza I 

For the British Grenadiers. 

II 

And when the wars are over, 

We '11 march by beat of drum, 
The ladies cry " So, Ho girls 

The Grenadiers have come ! 
The Grenadiers who always 

With love our hearts do cheer. 
Then Huzza ! Huzza ! Huzza ! Huzza 1 

For the British Grenadier." 



94 Ballads of 

There was one burlesque verse of pure Boston origin 

III 

Their patriot, Jimmy Otis, 

That bully in disguise. 
That well-known tyke of Yorkshire, 

That magazine of lies. 
And he will mount the rostrum 

And loudly he will bray 
Rebel ! Rebel ! Rebel ! Rebel I 

Rebel America ! 

After the war began, the rebels made their version : 

Vain Britons, boast no longer 

With proud indignity 
By land, your conquering legions, 

Your matchless strength at sea : 
Since we, your braver sons, incensed 

Our swords have gu'ded on 
Huzza, huzza, huzza 

For war and Washington I 

with much more of the same sort. 



New England History 95 



PAUL REVERES RIDE 

The reader must turn to Dr. Holmes for the ballad of the 
Tea Party. And when we come to the eighteenth of April, 
when Paul Revere went out from Boston by water and William 
Dawes by land to waken Middlesex County, there comes in 
Mr. Longfellow's " Ride of Paul Revere/' which every New 
England schoolboy knows by heart. 

This is the beginning and end of this celebrated ballad. 
It is printed with the consent of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin 
& Co. and will be found in full in their collections of Long- 
fellow's Poems. The authority for it is Revere's own narra- 
tive in the Massachusetts Historical Collection, First Series, 
Vol. V. p. 106. The date is Jan. 1, 1798. 

Listen, my children, and you shall hear 

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, 

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five ; 

Hardly a man is now alive 

Who remembers that famous day and year. 

He said to his friend, " If the British march 

By land or sea fi-om the town to-night, 

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch 

Of the North Church tower as a signal light, — 

One, if by land, and two, if by sea ; 

And I on the opposite shore will be 



96 Ballads of 

Ready to ride and spread the alarm 
Through every INIiddlesex village and farm. 
For the country folk to be up and to arm." 

Then he said, " Good night ! " and with muffled 

oar 
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, 
Just as the moon rose over the bay, 
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay 
The Somerset, British man-of-war ; 
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar 
Across the moon like a prison bar. 
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified 
By its own reflection in the tide, 
^leanwhile his friend, through alley and street. 
Wanders and watches with eager ears. 
Till in the silence around him he hears 
The muster of men at the barrack door, 
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet. 
And the measured tread of the grenadiers, 
Marching down to their boats on the shore. 

Then he chmbed the tower of the Old North 

Church, 
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, 
To the belfry chamber overhead. 



New England History 97 

And startled the pigeons from their perch 
On the sombre rafters that round him made 
Masses and moving shapes of shade, — 
By the trembhng ladder, steep and tall. 
To the highest window in the wall, 
AVhere he paused to listen and look down 
A moment on the roofs of the town, 
And the moonlight flowing over all. 

• •••••• 

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, 
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride 
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. 
Now he patted his horse's side. 
Now gazed at the landscape far and near. 
Then impetuous, stamped the earth, 
And turned, and tightened his saddle girth ; 
But mostly he watched witli eager search 
The belfiy tower of the Old North Church, 
As it rose above the graves on the hill. 
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. 
And lo ! as he looks, on the belfry's height 
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light I 
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, 
But Hngers and gazes, till full on his sight 
A second lamp in the belfry burns ! 



98 Ballads of 

It was twelve by the village clock 

When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. 

He heard the crowing of the cock, 

And the barking of the farmer's dog, 

And felt the damp of the river fog, 

That rises after the sun goes down. 

It was one by the village clock. 

When he galloped into Lexington. 

He saw the gilded weathercock 

Swim in the moonlight as he passed, 

And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, 

Gaze at him with a spectral glare, 

As if they already stood aghast 

At the bloody work they would look upon. 

It was two by the village clock, 

When he came to the bridge in Concord town. 

He heard the bleating of the flock, 

And the twitter of birds among the trees, 

And felt the breath of the morning breeze 

Blowing over the meadows brown. 

And one was safe and asleep in his bed 

Who at the bridge would be first to fall. 

Who that day would be lying dead, 

Pierced by a British musket-ball. 



New England History 99 

You know the rest. In the books you have 

read, 
How the British Regulars fired and fled, — 
How the fiirmers gave them ball for ball, 
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall, 
Chasing the red-coats down the lane, 
Then crossing the fields to emerge again 
Under the trees at the turn of the road, 
And only pausing to fire and load. 

So through the night rode Paul Revere ; 

And so through the night went his cry of alarm 

To every Middlesex village and farm, — 

A cry of defiance and not of fear, 

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, 

And a word that shall echo forevermore I 

For, borne on the night- wind of the Past, 

Through all our history, to the last. 

In the hour of darkness and peril and need, 

The people will waken and listen and hear, 

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed. 

And the midnight message of Paul Revere. 

LcfC. 



loo Ballads of 



NEW ENGLAND'S CHEVY CHASE 

Lord Percy went to the relief of Colonel Smith early in 
the day. As he passed the Dudley Stone at Roxbury he 
noticed a Roxbury boy who appeared to be ridiculing the 
Red-Coats. Percy sent to the boy to reprove him. To which 
the little rebel replied by this allusion to the noble house of 
Percy. 

" You go out to ' Yankee Doodle/ but you '11 dance by and 
by to ' Chevy Chase.' " 

We owe the story, which is probably true, to Dr. Gordon, a 
Roxbury man. He says that the repartee stuck to Percy all 
the rest of the day. Horace Walpole speaks of " the hunting 
of that day." The lines of the old " Chevy Chase " are, 

" The child unborn 
Shall rue the hunting of that day." 

I 

'T WAS the dead of the night. By the pine- 
knot's red hght 
Brooks lay, half-asleep, when he heard the 
alarm, — 
Only this, and no more, from a voice at the 
door : 
"The Red-Coats are out, and have passed 
Phips s farm." 



New England History loi 

II 
Brooks was booted and spurred ; he said never a 
word; 
Took his horn from its peg, and his gun from 
the rack ; 
To the cold midnight air he led out his white 
mare, 
Strapped the girths and the bridle, and sprang 
to her back. 

Ill 

Up the North County road, at her full pace she 
strode. 
Till Brooks reined her up at John Tarbell's 
to say, 
" We have got the alarm, — they have left Phips's 
farm ; 
You rouse the East Precinct, and I '11 go this 
way." 

IV 

John called his hired man, and they harnessed 
the span ; 
They roused Abram Garfield, and Abram 
called me : 



I02 Ballads of 

" Turn out right away ; let no minute-man 
stay; 
The Red-Coats have landed at Phips's," says 
he. 

V 

By the Powder-House Green seven others fell in ; 
At Nahum's the men from the Saw-MiU came 
down; 
So that when Jabez Bland gave the word of 
command, 
And said, " Forward, march ! " there marched 
forward The Town. 



VI 

Parson Wilderspin stood by the side of the 
road. 
And he took off his hat, and he said, " Let us 
pray! 
O Lord, God of Might, let thine angels of 
light 
Lead thy children to-night to the glories of 
day, 
And let thy stars fight all the foes of the Right 
As the stars fought of old against Sisera." 



New England History 103 

VII 

And from heaven's high arch those stars blessed 
our march, 
Till the last of them faded in twilight away ; 
And with morning's bright beam, by the bank 
of the stream, 
Half the county marched in, and we heard 
Davis say : 

VIII 

*' On the King's own highway I may travel all 
day. 
And no man hath warrant to stop me," says he ; 
" I 've no man that 's afraid, and I '11 march at 
their head." 
Then he turned to the boys, " Forward, march I 
Follow me." 

IX 

And we marched as he said ; and the Fifer he 
played 
The old " White Cockade," and he played it 
right well. 
We saw Davis fall dead, but no man was afraid ; 
That bridge we 'd have had, though a thousand 
men fell. 



104 Ballads of 

X 

This opened the play, and it lasted all day. 
We made Concord too hot for the Red-Coats 
to stay ; 
Down the Lexington way we stormed, black, 
white, and gray ; 
We were first in the feast, and were last in the 
fray. 

XI 

They would turn in dismay, as red wolves turn 
at bay. 
They levelled, they fired, they charged up the 
road. 
Cephas Willard fell dead ; he was shot in the head 
As he knelt by Aunt Prudence's well-sweep 
to load. 

XII 

John Danforth was hit just in Lexington Street, 
John Bridge at that lane where you cross Beaver 
Falls, 
And Winch and the Snows just above John 
Monroe's, — 
Swept away by one swoop of the big cannon 
balls. 



New England History 105 

XIII 

I took Bridge on my knee, but he said, " Don't 
mind me ; 
Fill your horn from mine, — let me lie where 
I be. 
Our fathers," says he, " that their sons might be 
free. 
Left their king on his throne, and came over 
the sea ; 
And that man is a knave or a fool who, to 
save 
His life for a minute, would live like a 
slave." 

XIV 

Well, all would not do I There were men good 

as new, — 
From Rumford, from Saugus, from towns far 

away, — 
Who filled up quick and well for each soldier 

that fell ; 
And we drove them, and drove them, and 

drove them, all day. 
We knew, every one, it was war that begun, 
When that morning's marching was only half 

done. 



io6 Ballads of 

XV 

In the hazy twilight, at the coming of night, 

I crowded three buckshot and one bullet down. 
'T was my last charge of lead ; and t aimed her 
and said, 
*' Good luck to you, lobsters, in old Boston 
Town." 

XVI 

In a barn at Milk Row, Ephraim Bates and 
Monroe, 
And Baker, and Abram, and I made a bed. 
We had mighty sore feet, and we 'd nothing 
to eat ; 
But we 'd driven the Red- Coats, and Amos, he 
said: 
" It 's the first time," says he, " that it 's happened 
to me 
To march to the sea by this road where we Ve 
come ; 
But confound this whole day, but we 'd all of us 
say 
We 'd rather have spent it this way than to 
home."^ 

1 One of the veterans of the Lexington fight told his story of it to 
Mr. Edward Everett. Mr. Everett said, " You have never regretted 
that day, I am sure," and the old man replied, " Well, I 'd rather 
have spent it so than to hum." 



New England History 107 

XVII 

The hunt had begun with the dawn of the sun. 
And night saw the wolf driven back to his den. 

And never since then, in the memory of men, 
Has the Old Bay State seen such a hunting 
again. 

April 19, 1882. 



io8 Ballads of 



A SONG 

Composed by the British Soldiers, after the Fight at Bunker 
Hill, June 17, 1775 

Dr. Holmes has covered the story of Bunker Hill in 
" Grandmamma's Ballad/' but I copy a few verses from a 
contemporary broadside, printed to encourage recruiting for 
English Arms. There are other "popular" ballads of the 
same kind : — 

It was on the seventeenth by brake of day. 

The Yankees did surprise us, 
With their strong works they had thrown up, 

To burn the town and drive us ; 
But soon we had an order come, 

An order to defeat them : 
Like rebels stout they stood it out 

And thought we ne'er could beat them. 

About the hour of twelve that day. 

An order came for marching, 
With three good flints and sixty rounds. 

Each man hop'd to discharge them. 



New England History 109 

We marched down to the long wharf, 
Where boats were ready waiting ; 

With expedition we embark 'd, 
Our ships kept cannonading. 

And when our boats all filled were 

With officers and soldiers, 
With as good troops as England had, 

To oppose who dare controul us ; 
And when our boats all filled were 

We row'd in fine of battle, 
Where show'rs of balls like hail did fly. 

Our cannon loud did rattle. 

There 's some in Boston pleas'd to say. 

As we the field were taking, 
We went to kill their countrymen, 

While they their hay were making ; 
For such stout Whigs I never saw ; 

To hang them all I 'd rather, 
For making hay with musket-balls, 

And buck-shot mixed together. 

Brave Howe is so considerate, 

As to prevent all danger ; 
He allows half a pint a day. 

To rum we are no strangers. 



no Ballads of 

Long may he live by land and sea, 
For he 's beloved by many ; 

The name of Howe the Yankees dread, 
We see it very plainly. 

And now my song is at an end ; 

And to conclude my ditty. 
It is the poor and ignorant, 

And only them, I pity. 
As for their king John Hancock, 

And Adams, if they 're taken, 
Their heads for signs shall hang up high 

Upon that hill call'd Bacon. 



New England History m 



An American ballad to the tune of Anacreon in Heaven 
appeared in a Boston paper at some time in the 'Forties of 
the last century ; but though the ring is good, it is clearly 
modern. This will be enough of it. 

We lay in the trenches we 'd dug in the 
ground 
While Phoebus blazed down from his Glory- 
lined car ; 
And then from the lips of our Leader re- 
nowned 
This lesson we heard in the Science of War I 
" Let the foemen draw nigh 
Till the White of his Eije 
Is in range with your Rifles, and then, Lads ! 
Let Fly ! 
And show to Cohimbia, to Britain, and Fame, 
How Justice smiles awful when Freemen take 
Aim!" 



112 Ballads of 



THE MARCHING SONG OF 
STARK'S MEN 

[The Battle of Bennington was the turning-point of the 
Revolution. It is fair, therefore, to call the day when it was 
fought the crisis day of Modern History.] 

March 1 March ! March ! from sunrise till it 's 
dark, 
And let no man straggle on the way ! 
March ! March ! March ! as we follow old John 
Stark, 
For the old man needs us all to-day. 



Load ! Load ! Load ! Three buckshot and a 
ball. 
With a hymn-tune for a wad to make them 
stay I 
But let no man dare to fire till he gives the word 
to all. 
Let no man let the buckshot go astray. 



New England History 113 

Fire ! Fire ! Fire ! Fire all along the line, 

When we meet those bloody Hessians in 
array ! 
They shall have every grain from this powder- 
horn of mine, 
Unless the cowards turn and run away. 

Home ! Home ! Home I When the fight is 
fought and won. 
To the home where the women watch and 
prayl 
To tell them how John Stark finished what he 
had begun. 
And to hear them thank our God for the 
day. 

August 16, 1777. 

" The year of the triple Gallows " was the joke of the 
patriots of the time : the reference was to 7 three times 
repeated. 



1 14 Ballads of 



CONCORD BRIDGE 



There 's peace and quiet by Yorkshire Bridge 

Where early sunbeams fall. 
There 's a drowsy hum in the summer morn, 
And the far-away note of the hunter's horn 

Brings back an answering call. 

Two fair-haired boys meet by the bridge, 
At that far-away answering call. 



II 

There's bustle and hurry on London Bridge, 

With its ceaseless come and go : — 
There 's the tramp of feet and the roll of drums. 
And the cold, clear note of the bugle comes 
Up from the ships below I 

Two soldiers are waiting hard by the bridge 
Watching the ships below. 



New England History 115 

III 

There 's a call to arms by Charlestown Bridge I 

And ere the cock has crowed, 
There 's a rattle of guns, there 's a muffled tread, 
And the low stern voice of command ahead 

As they swing up the country road. 

Two comrades are marching across the bridge 
As they swing up the country road. 

IV 

There 's peace and quiet by Concord Bridge 

After the angry fight, — 
There 's the stillness of death in the lonely spot, 
Though the far-away sound of a musket shot 

Comes faint through the soft twilight. 

Two English soldiers are sleeping there — 
And they dream of home and the early dawn 
When the far-away note of the hunting horn 
Came faint through the evening air. 



ii6 Ballads of 



THE YANKEY'S RETURN FROM 
CAMP 

I REPRINT this authentic copy of this well-known ballad for 
two reasons. First, as I think, this is the earliest copy known. 
Mr. Barton, of the Antiquarian Society, is so good as to furnish 
it for me from their invaluable collection. 

Second, an autograph note of Judge Dawes, of the Harvard 
class of 1777, addressed to my father, says that the author of 
the well-known lines was Edward Bangs, who graduated with 
him. It is easy to imagine how the class of '77, which was 
first at Cambridge in 1773 and '74, was carried to Concord in 

1775, and returned to Old Hollis and Old Massachusetts in 

1776, must have been affected by the arrival of the minute- 
men, the gathering of Artemas Ward's army, and the inaugu- 
ration of Washington. It seems to me that the poem has a 
special interest from the knowledge that it was written by a 
college lad of those days. I beg the members of the Insti- 
tute of 1770 to find some trace of something like it in their 
Revolutionary Records. Mr. Bangs had, as a college boy, 
joined the Middlesex farmers in the pursuit of April 19, 
1775. He was aftei-ward a Judge in Worcester County. 

The College was transferred from Cambridge to Concord in 
September, 1775. At any period between the twentieth of 
April and September, young Bangs, who was a sophomore, 
could have seen what he describes. 



New England History 117 

Father and I went down to camp, 

Along with Captain Gooding. 
And there we see the men and boys, 

As thick as hasty pudding. 
Chorus. — Yankey doodle, keep it up, 
Yankey doodle, dandy. 
Mind the music and the step, 
And with the girls be handy. 

And there we see a thousand men. 

As rich as 'Squire David ; 
And what they wasted every day, 

I wish it could be saved. 

Yankey doodle, etc. 

The lasses they eat every day. 
Would keep an house a winter : 

They have as much that 1 11 be bound 
They eat it when they 're a mind to. 

Yankey doodle, etc. 

And there we see a swamping gun. 

Large as a log of maple. 
Upon a deucid little cart, 

A load for father's cattle. 

Yankey doodle, etc. 



1 1 8 Ballads of 

And every time they shoot it off, 

It takes a horn of powder, 
And makes a noise hke father's gun, 

Only a nation louder. 

Yankey doodle, etc. 



I went as nigh to one myself, 

As siah's underpinning ; 
And father went as nigh again, 

I thought the deuce was in him. 

Yankey doodle, etc. 



Cousin simon grew so bold, 

I thought he would have cock'd it ; 

It sear'd me so I shrink'd it off. 
And hung by father's pocket. 

Yankey doodle, etc. 



And Captain Davis had a gun. 
He kind of clap'd his hand on't. 

And stuck a crooked stabbing Iron 
Upon the little end on 't. 

Yankey doodle, etc. 



New England History 119 

And there I see a pumpkin shell 

As big as mother's bason ; 
And every time they touch'd it off. 

They scamper 'd like the nation. 

Yankey doodle, etc. 



I see a little barrel too, 

The heads were made of leather, 
They knock'd upon 't with little clubs, 

And call'd the folks together. 

Yankey doodle, etc. 



And there was Captain Washington, 

And gentlefolks about him. 
They say he 's grown so tarnal proud, 

He will not ride without 'em. 

Yankey doodle, etc. 



He got him on his meeting cloathes. 

Upon a slapping stallion, 
He set the world along in rows. 

In hundreds and in millions. 

Yankey doodle, etc. 



I20 Ballads of 

The flaming ribbons in his hat, 
They look'd so taring fine ah, 

I wanted pockily to get, 
To give to my Jemimah. 

Yankey doodle, etc. 



I see another snarl of men 

A digging graves, they told me. 

So tarnal long, so tarnal deep. 

They 'tended they should hold me. 

Yankey doodle, etc. 

It scar'd me so, I hook'd it off. 

Nor stop'd, as I remember. 
Nor turn'd about till I got home, 

Lock'd up in mother's chamber. 

Yankey doodle, etc. 



New England History 121 



THE YANKEE PRIVATEER 

The incident referred to in this ballad is perfectly authenti- 
cated. Of the ten prizes taken by Whipple in successive 
nights, nine arrived safely into Massachusetts harbors. 

" Old Whipple " is Abraham Whipple, one of the Rhode 
Island Vikings. After the war he went out with Abraham 
Cutter to Marietta, and he is thus one of the founders of the 
State of Ohio. At Marietta he built the first ship which 
ever went to sea from Ohio. A good deal of ship-building 
was carried on in Ohio after the success of this voyage. The 
ships were built where timber was plenty, and were then 
sent down the rivers to "Orleans " never to return to their 
birthplace. 

Come listen and I '11 tell you 

How first I went to sea, 
To fight against the British 

And earn our liberty. 
We shipped with Cap'n Whipple 

Who never knew a fear, 
The Captain of the Providence, 

The Yankee Privateer. 



122 Ballads of 

We sailed and we sailed 

And made good cheer, 
There were many pretty men 

On the Yankee Privateer. 

The British Lord High Admiral 

He wished old Whipple harm, 
He wrote that he would hang him 

At the end of his yard arm. 
" My Lord," wrote Cap'n Whipple back, 

" It seems to me it 's clear 
That if you want to hang him, 

You must catch your Privateer." 

We sailed and we sailed 

And made good cheer, 
For not a British frigate 

Could come near the Privateer. 

We sailed to the south'ard. 

And nothing did we meet 
Till we found three British frigates 

And their West Indian fleet. 
Old Whipple shut our ports 

As he crawled up near. 
And he sent us all below 

On the Yankee Privateer. 



New England History 123 

So slowly he sailed 

We dropped to the rear. 
And not a soul suspected 

The Yankee Privateer. 

At night we put the lights out 

And forward we ran 
And silently we boarded 

The biggest merchantman. 
We knocked down the watch, — 

And the lubbers shook for fear. 
She 's a prize without a shot, 

To the Yankee Privateer. 

We sent the prize north 

While we lay near 
And all day we slept 

On the bold Privateer. 

For ten nights we followed, 

And ere the moon rose. 
Each night a prize we 'd taken 

Beneath the Lion's nose. 
When the British looked to see 

Why their ships should disappear. 
They found they had in convoy 

A Yankee Privateer. 



124 Ballads of 

But we sailed and sailed 
And made good cheer I 

Not a coward was on board 
Of the Yankee Privateer. 

The biggest British frigate 

Bore round to give us chase, 
But though he was the fleeter 

Old Whipple would n't race, 
Till he 'd raked her fore and aft, 

For the lubbers could n't steer, 
Then he showed them the heels 

Of the Yankee Privateer. 

Then we sailed and we sailed 
And we made good cheer. 

For not a British frigate 

Could come near the Privateer. 

Then northward we sailed 

To the town we all know, 
And there lay our prizes. 

All anchored in a row ; 
And welcome were we 

To our friends so dear, 
And we shared a million dollars 

On the bold Privateer. 



New England History 125 

We 'd sailed and we 'd sailed 

And we made good cheer. 
We had all full pockets 

On the bold Privateer. 

Then we each manned a ship 

And our sails we unfurled, 
And we bore the Stars and Stripes 

O'er the oceans of the world. 
From the proud flag of Britain 

We swept the seas clear, 
And we earned our independence 

On the Yankee Privateer. 

Then landsmen and sailors, 

One more cheer ! 
Here is three times three 

For the Yankee Privateer ! 



JuLV, 1779. 



126 Ballads of 



THE OLD SOUTH PICTURE- 
GALLERY 

To hide the time-stains on our wall 
Let every tattered banner fall I 
The Bourbon lihes, green and old, 
That flaunted once in burnished gold ; 
The oriflamme of France that fell 
That day when sunburned Pepperrell 
His shotted salvos fired so well, 
The fleur de Lys trailed sulky down, 
And Louisburg was George's town. 
The Bourbon yields it in despair 
To Saxon arm and Pilgrim prayer. 

Hang there the Lion and the Tower, 
Pale emblems of Castilian power, 
The flags which Lyman brought away 
In triumph from Havana Bay 
A hundred years ago. 



New England History 127 

Lion and tower have to fall 
Unwilling from the Morro wall, 
As at the Yankee fife and drum 
New England and her train-bands come, 
They swim the moat ; they climb the ledge, 
They drive the sentries from the edge. 
They storm the IMorro on the steep. 
And tear away the flags to keep. 
That so our walls may show 
To England and to dying Spain 
How freedom makes our sort of men. 



Hang there, and there, the dusty rags 
Which once were jaunty battle flags, 
And for a week, in triumph vain. 
Gay flaunted over blue Champlain, 
Gayly had circled half the world, 
Until they dropped, disgraced and furled, 

That day the Hampshire line 
Stood to its arms at dress parade, 
Beneath the Stars and Stripes arrayed, 

And Massachusetts Pine, 
To see the great atonement made 

By Riedesel and Burgoyne. 



128 Ballads of 

Eagles which Caesar's hand had fed, 
Banners which Charlemagne had led, 

A thousand years before, 
A dozing empire meanly gave 
To be the eagles of a slave. 
And let the mean Elector wave 

Those banners on our shore. 

The mean Elector basely sold 
Eagle and flag for George's gold ; 

And in the storm of war, 
In crash of battle, thick and dark, 
Beneath the rifle-shot of Stark, 
The war-worn staff", the crest of gold. 
The scutcheon proud and storied fold, 
In surges of defeat were rolled. 
So even Roman banners fall. 
To screen the time-stains on our wall 1 

Between the Roman and the Gaul 
See where our English colors fall ! 
Yes ! under there we led the way 
With Wolfe, and in Havana Bay ; 
But when the time had come. 
That cross of white, that cross of red, 
Fell in their turn, that in their stead 



New England History 129 

The pine-tree and the thirteen bars, 

At sound of Yankee fife and drum, 
Might float on Beacon Hill that day, 

That happy spring-time morning when 

In triumph he, our first of men, 

Rode along Boston Neck, the day 
Howe and his red-coats sailed away. 
So white-robed peace resumed her sway 
For us the dwellers by the Bay. 

The cross which stubborn Endicott 
Had from King Charles's ensign cut. 

Shall on our Beacon wave no more I 
No ! from that hour till now. 
No foeman's foot has found its way, 
Across the marches of our Bay, 

Nor foreign eagles sought our shore. 

Beneath the war-flag's faded fold 
I see our sovereigns of old 

On magic canvas there. 
The tired face of " baby Charles " 
Looks sadly down from Pilgrim walls, 

Half pride and half despair. 

Doubtful to flatter or to strike, 

To cozen or to dare. 
9 



130 Ballads of 

His steel clad charger he bestrides 
As if to smite the Ironsides, 
When Rupert with his squadron rides ; 
Yet such his gloomy brow and eye, 
You wonder if he will not try 
Once more the magic of a lie 
To lift him from his care. 



Hold stiU your truncheon ! If it moves, 
The ire of Cromwell's rage it braves I 

For the next picture shows 
The grim Protector on his steed, 
Ready to pray, to strike, to lead, — 
Dare all for England, which he saves, 

New England, which he loves. 

Vandyck drew Charles. 'T is Kneller there 
Has pictured a more peaceful pair ; 
There Orange gives his last command, 
The charter gives to Mather's hand ; 
And blooming there, the queenly she. 
Who takes " now counsel, and now tea," 
Confounding Blenheim and Bohea, 
Careless of war's alarm. 



New England History 131 

Yet as of old, the virgin Queen, 
When armed for victory, might press 
The smoky firelock of " Brown Bess," 
So Anna, in a fond caress, 

Rests on a black " Queen's Arm," 
Beneath those forms another band, 
Silent but eloquent, shall stand. 
There is no uttered voice nor speech 
As still of liberty they teach ; 
No language and no sound is heard. 
Yet still the everlasting word 
Goes forth to thrill the land. 
Story and Greenough shall compel 
The silent marble forms to tell 
The lesson that they told so well. 

Lesson of Fate and Awe, — 
Franklin still point the common place 

Of Liberty and Law ; 
Adams shall look in Otis' face, 

Blazing with Freedom's soul ; 
And Molyneux see Hancock trace 
The fatal word which frees a race, 
There in New England's well-earned place, 

The head of Freedom's roll. 



132 Ballads of 

These are not all. The past is gone, 
But other victories shall be won, 
For which the time-worn tale we read 
Is but the sowing of the seed. 
The harvest shall be gathered when 
Our children's children meet again 

Upon the time-worn floor ; 
When ruddy drops flush living cheek. 
And tribunes of the people speak 
As living man can speak to living men ; 
When future Adamses conspire, 
When other Danas feed the fire, 
Each grandson worthy of his sire ; 
When other Phillipses shall tell 
Again the tale he tells so well ; 
When other Minots shall record 
The victories of some other Ward, 
And other Prescotts tell the story 
Of other Warrens' death and glory ; 
When, in some crisis of the land. 
Some other Quincy takes the stand. 
To teach, to quicken, to command, — 

To speak with prophet's power 
Of Liberty and Law combined. 
Of Justice close with Mercy joined. 



New England History 133 

United in one hand and mind ; 

That talisman of victory find 

In which our laurels all are twined, — 

And for one struggle more 
Forget those things which lie behind, 

And reach to those before. 



134 Ballads of 



ANOTHER CENTURY 

The unpleasantness with France at the end of the eigh- 
teenth century and the Algerine wars furnished their contri- 
bution, such as they are, to ballad literature. There are one 
or two poems of western emigration, some ridiculing it, some 
approving it. 

The adoption of the Federal Constitution brought its 
share. Here comes what amuses a Boston ear. 

Convention did in State House meet. 
And when it would n't hold 'em, 
They all went down to Federal Street, 
And there the truth was told them. 

The short war with England brought an immense crop of 
sailor songs and other songs. I would print " Bold Dacres 
came on board," which is perhaps the only sailor song which 
has survived, but that it is so well remembered on every 
American forecastle. It begins : 

I often have been told 
That the British seamen bold 
Could beat the tars of France 
Neat and handy, O. 

But they never got their match 
Till the Yankees did them catch. 
For the Yankee tars for fighting 
Are the dandy, O. 

What is not so well known, and may be worth pre- 
serving, is the retaliatory song to the same air, which was 



New England History 135 

written by some English ballad-monger after the Shannon 
took the Chesapeake. I am able to print it by the kindness 
of Mr. James E. Whitney, Jr. 



CHESAPEAKE AND SHANNON 

" The Chesapeake so bold 
Out of Boston, I Ve been told, 
Came to take a British Frigate 

Neat and handy, O ! 
While the people of the port 
Flocked out to see the sport. 
With their music playing 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, O ! 

" Now the British Frigate's name 
Which for the purpose came 
Of cooling Yankee courage 

Neat and handy, O ! 
Was the Shannon, Captain Broke, 
Whose crew were heart of oak. 
And for fighting were confessed 

To be the dandy, O ! 

" The engagement scarce begun 
Ere they flinched from their guns. 
Which at first they thought of working 
Neat and handy, O I 



I '56 Ballads of 



J 



The bold Broke he waved his sword, 
Crying, * Now, my lads, on board, 
And we '11 stop their playing 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, O I ' 

" They no sooner heard the word 
Than they quickly rushed aboard 
And hauled down the Yankee ensign 

Neat and handy, O ! 
Notwithstanding all their brag, 
Now the glorious British flag 
At the Yankee's mizzen-peak 

Was quite the dandy, O ! 

" Successful Broke to you, 
And your officers and crew. 
Who on board the Shannon frigate 

Fought so handy, O I 
And may it ever prove 
That in fighting as in love 

The true British tar is the dandy, O I " 



New England History 137 



OLD IRONSIDES 

" Old Ironsides," as the Constitution frigate was familiarly 
called, was built at a Boston wharf. She sailed from Boston 
in June, 1812, to fight the Guerriere. Legitimate commerce 
was at an end ; there were a plenty of seamen hungry for 
a fight, and an old New Englander is apt to say, whether 
truly or not I do not know, that every man of her crew, 
when she fought the Guerriere, was a well-trained skipper 
who could have "navigated " the ship. 

By the combination of the new western States with the 
southern oligarchies. General Jackson was chosen President. 
The new dynasty well in the saddle, as a neat bit of bravado, 
gave orders to break up the New England frigate Constitution. 
She had been built under the older Adams. They had now 
turned out the younger Adams, and the plan for her destruc- 
tion was rather an ingenious insult to the North. The ship 
herself was not much more than thirty years old at the time. 

The insult was received with more spirit than was expected. 
It was perhaps suggested by some over-officious person in 
Jackson's cabinet. But it roused Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
then scarcely more than a boy, and he himself has told how 
he retired to his attic room, in General Ward's old headquar- 
ters at Cambridge, and wrote the verses which " fired the 
northern heart." The order for the destruction of the ship 
was withdrawn, and we still preserve her under the shadow 
of Bunker Hill as the Athenians preserved the Galley of 



138 Ballads of 

Theseus. Dr. Holmes might well claim the credit of saving 
" Old Ironsides/' and the poem, printed everywhere in the 
northern States, won for him at once his national reputation. 



Ay, tear her tattered ensign down ! 

Long has it waved on high, 
And many an eye has danced to see 

That banner in the sky ; 
Beneath it rung the battle's shout. 

And burst the cannon's roar ; — 
The meteor of the ocean air 

Shall sweep the clouds no more. 

Her deck once red with heroes' blood. 

Where knelt the vanquished foe, 
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, 

And waves were white below, 
No more shall feel the victor's tread, 

Or feel the conquered knee ; — 
The harpies of the shore shall pluck 

The eagle of the sea I 

Oh, better that her shattered hulk 
Should sink beneath the wave ; 

Her thunders shook the mighty deep. 
And there should be her grave ; 



New England History 139 

Nail to the mast her holy flag, 

Set every threadbare sail, 
And give her to the God of storms. 

The lightning and the gale ! 

The capture of the Guerriere was not the last of New Eng- 
land's victories, nor the loss of the Chesapeake the last of her 
defeats. But life went on with its chances and changes of 
hope and fear. And these ballads of what the Rhode Island- 
ers call the "South country " come next in the history of the 
last century. Then comes the " marshalling in arms." 



140 Ballads of 



THE FUNERAL OF OLD JOHN 
RUDD 

A Southwest wind on Matimuck Beach brings 

the seaweed up on the shore, 
And then will the farmers' carts be down, you 

can often count a score. 
And see the men in the water, knee-deep as 

though they were spearing eels, 
While the seaweed carts stand just by the edge 

with kelp all over the wheels. 
The carts come down from the whole Backside 

to gather their dripping load, 
And from upland farms away in the woods, and 

from all the Kingston Road, 
And even from Carolina, nine miles and more 

away 
Where they hitch the oxen up to the carts before 

the gray dawn o' the day. 

So one night Ben Segar's team was mounting the 

rise of Halfway Hill ; 
It was almost light, for the stars were bright and 

the moon shone soft and still ; 



New England History 141 

And Ben could see the Block Island lights as he 
mounted the little crest. 

With Judith flashing away in the east, and Mon- 
tauk off in the west. 

But on reaching the flat where the road is bad, 
(for the sand lies heavy and deep). 

Uncle Ben lay down on the seat for a bit and 
soon fell half asleep, 

And left his team to get on by themselves with- 
out the guide of the goad. 

The oxen jogging one step at a time as they 
lurched along the road. 



'T is a weary ride, for the houses are few and far 

between. 
And there 's hardly a sound to be heard for miles 

or a sign of life to be seen, 
Save now and then the piercing cry of a cock that 

has waked and crowed. 
Or the sudden dash of a woodchuck as he scuttles 

across the road. 
And so for a time Ben nodded along, and then 

with a start he woke 
And lifted his head and snuffed the air, for he 

smelt the smell of smoke. 



142 Ballads of 

Off here to the left lived Old John Rudd, the 

Hermit as people said, 
He had lived by hiinself for twenty years since 

old man Rudd was dead. 

An unfriendly man was the hermit. He 'd lived 

so long alone 
That his heart was about as soft and kind as a 

Green Hill cobblestone. 
He had read no book but the Bible since ever 

he'd learned to read, 
And out of the texts he'd made for himself a 

gloomy and grievous creed. 
And he 'd go to Corneha's to meeting, and after 

he 'd sat a spell 
He 'd up and preach the Good Tidings of Death, 

Damnation and Hell. 

So the children ran when they saw him, and he 

frowned when he saw a child. 
For what was a child but the image of Christ 

with original sin defiled ? 
And he lived apart in his house in the woods as 

lonely as could be. 
And nobody loved him in all this world and he 

loved nobody. 



New England History 143 

As he smelt the smoke Ben left his team and 

ran off into the wood, 
Along the cart track over the hill to where John 

Rudd's house had stood. 
But when he reached the clearing, in place of the 

house, he found 
Charred beams and glowing embers spread over 

the blackened ground. 
And there stood Csesar the negro, who lived in 

the hills to the East, 
The hermit's nearest neighbour though a mile 

away at least. 

" Yer 've come too late," said Uncle Ben, " we 've 

both on us come too late ; 
We 'd a had to been here hours ago to a saved 

John Rudd from his fate." 
He pointed down and there stretched out from 

the roof a-clutching the sand 
Was the charred and blackened remnant of what 

had been John Rudd's hand. 

The two men moved no nearer ; they looked, and 

stood apart. 
The ashes of awe in their faces and the dread of 

death at the heart. 



144 Ballads of 

For a moment then there was silence : till Ben 

spoke up and said 
" I guess the ole man was smothered to death 

afore he could leave his bed. 
Or p'raps he was struck by the fall of the roof 

at the door he was crawlin' fur, 
He was awful bad with the rheumatiz'. and at 

times could n t hardly stir." 



Then Csesar said : " I see him comin' home las' 

Sat 'day night. 
He was snarlin' and talkin' dreadful, as he did 

when things were n't right. 
He said this earth was so wicked, the Lord did n't 

love it no more. 
An' he said the Lord had hidden His face as it 

never was hidden before. 
But he said the days was comin', the days was 

close at hand 
AVhen the Lord would smite the evil through 

the len'th and breadth of the land. 
For he said we was judged : we was all on us 

weighed and foun' wantin' an' all. 
An' there was n't a spot on the whole wide world 

where the wrath of the Lord would n't fall. 



New England History 145 

For Christ would come with his angels in chay- 

yuts of fire an' of flame 
An' the blazin' sword of his conquerin' Word, an' 

the dread of his awful Name 
An' he 'd smite the earth an' destroy it : the sea, 

an' the sand, an' the sod, 
An' it 's flame should go up forever amen, for the 

greater glory of God." 
And Caesar paused and showed his teeth and his 

eyeballs glistened white, 
And he thought of these future horrors with holy 

and high delight. 

" Well the flamin' chayyut 's come for him, said 

Ben, " and there 's the proof. 
But now I guess we'm best to go for some help 

to raise that roof. 
'T won't do John Rudd no good. He don't want 

help no more. 
But I '11 rouse the folks along the road — I was 

goin' down t' the shore." 
So Ben went back to his oxen and Caesar went 

on his way. 
And John Rudd's pyre was left to itself in the 

glow of the newborn day. 



10 



146 Ballads of 

And the laurel was pink on the hillside, and its 

dark leaves gleamed in the dew, 
The morning breeze moved through the trees and 

the grey sky warmed to blue, 
The birds began to twitter as the day stole over 

the hill. 
The bees buzzed round o'er the blackened ground 

as they followed their wandering will, 
And the birds and the bees and the flowers and 

the trees and the morning glow in the air 
Were a living proof by the blackened roof, that 

the Glory of God was there. 
But the Hermit lay all quiet after his last fierce 

strife 
As blind and deaf to the flowers and the birds as 

he ever had been in life. 
Yet off" in the dawn of the perfect day which 

began with such fiery birth, 
John Rudd had found the Glory of God which 

he missed in his night on this earth. 



New England History 147 



THE BREACH BY POINT JUDITH 
POINT 

The wind blows hard on Point Judith Point 

and the sea 's all black and white, 
No wind that has blown for fifty year£ has blown 

like the wind to-night. 
Along to the west the shore curves round and as 

far as the eye can reach 
The sea is rolling and breaking high for a half 

a mile from the beach. 
The western sky is a cold red streak beneath the 

cloudbank's frown, 
Red with the gold of the sun, but cold in the 

place where the sun went down. 

Along by the Saltpond Breach is the place where 
the surf has the sport most rare, 

For the sea runs in and the pond runs out, and 
the waves crash high in the air. 

The breakers reach far into the Breach in a roll- 
ing snowwhite wedge, 



148 Ballads of 

And they gnaw the sand on either hand as they 

eat up the sandy ledge. 
The breakers reach far into the Breach with a 

lashing rumble and roar, 
And the white foam flecks the half-ribbed wrecks 

that lie far up on the shore, 
If half-tide runs so near the dunes, high tide will 

wash them o'er. 



Up from the shore of Meadow Point where the 

two Saltponds divide. 
Is Long John Tucker's farmhouse, with the 

barns on either side. 
Long John leans over the barnyard gate as the 

cows come home. " I fear 
To-night will be the worst night at sea there 's 

been for many a year." 
The cattle are milked, the barnyard closed, the 

chickens are gathered and fed. 
And the farmer's folks take supper and soon be- 
take themselves to bed. 
They sleep full sound nor trouble their sleep with 

thought of the ships at sea. 
And the breaker's roar comes up from the shore 

a-grumbling ceaselessly. 



New England History 149 

The little room in the farmhouse ell, over the 

kitchen door, 
Is the room of the farmer's hired girl, the room 

of JNIaiy More. 
Mary INI ore, the girl that you see when you pass 

the house as you go 
To the Kingfisher fishing-gang's house on the 

bluff a half a mile below. 
An Irish girl ^\dth a fresh, frank face, a cheerful, 

pleasant sight, — 
But God in Heaven I the look on the face of 

Mary More this night. 
As she looks from her window and tries to pierce 

the dark and the wind and the gloom. 
Leaning far out on the window ledge in her poor 

little garret room. 
Poor JNIary, — no father nor mother, — her lover 

away at sea. 
Homeward bound perhaps, in a gale the worst 

that a gale can be. 



All tired out with watching at last Mary sinks to 

her bed 
To a sleep that is worse than waking, for the 

dreams that dance through her head, 



150 Ballads of 

Dreams of wrecks and drowning men and storms 

and ships at sea, 
With breakers groaning and sounds of moaning 

as though of the grim Banshee. 
Storms and wrecks and drowning men chase 

through her feverish dream 
Till she wakes with a start, her hand on her heart, 

at the fearful sound of a scream. 
At a drowning scream that chills her heart, Mary- 
wakes up from sleep, 
And sick with dread she springs from her bed to 

look out at the noise of the deep. 
But except for the sound of the wind and the 

surf the farmhouse stands all still, 
Except for the sound of the surf and the wind, — 

silent, lonely, chill. 
And out of the Mdndow Mary leans and to pierce 

the night she tries ; 
A night so black that it almost seems less black 

when you close your eyes. 



Crazed with horror and sick with dread, Mary 

runs to the door, 
Slips down the stair and into the air, and makes 

for the wild seashore. 



New England History 151 

She 's run through the meadow and crossed the 

ford, where the carts bring up marsh-hay, 
She 's run by the side of the pond where the tide 

is ankle-deep over the way, 
She 's thrown herself into the swift-running gut 

that 's swept her on to the bar. 
And now she stands on the wet sea sands where 

the wrecks and the seabirds are, 
She strains her eyes at the darkness and out at 

the storm looks she. 
But nothing 's in sight save the lone sand beach 

and the clouds and the white, white sea. 
Nothing in sight save the sea so white and the 

clouds and the lone sand beach, 
And nothing to hear but the gi'owling drear of 

the surf and the roaring Breach. 
She's alone with the wrecks and the seabirds, 

alone with her fear and her fears 
While the dro\Miing scream she heard in her 

dream still rings and rings in her ears. 



That night Pawawget changed its shape, for the 

sand filled up the Breach, 
And the water opened another way by the cabin 

of old Ned Teach, 



152 Ballads of 

Where the cart track runs between the dunes, in 

the path that was made by the sea 
Just six and sixty years ago, in the gale of 

Twenty-three. 
And the place on the beach where Mary stood 

and looked for her lover that night 
Was all cut off by the water at first, and then 

was buried from sight. 
And over the place where Mary had stood with 

her shawl round shoulders and head 
The breakers roared their stormy fugue as a 

Wedding March for the Dead. 



And the Sally and Jane went ashore that night, 

as had happened in Mary's dream, 
And maybe the scream that Mary had heard was 

somebody's drowning scream. 
But neither among the saved nor the drowned, 

and neither on sea nor on shore. 
Was the man whom Mary had seen in her dream, 

the lover of Mary More. 
For the lover that Mary had looked for on the 

stormy night she was drowned 
Had never shipped in the Sally and Jane from 

Havana homeward bound. 



New England History 153 

He had shipped for a longer and quicker voyage, 
bound for God knows where, — 

Stabbed and killed in Havana for courting a bull- 
fighter's mistress there. 



154 Ballads of 



COTTON 

Soon as the country rolls up from the plain 
The hills remind me of the hills of Maine. 
The same dark pines around to frown o'er all, — 
The same rank growth where'er the forests 

fall,— 
The same green slopes, the same black swamps 

below. 
Where not the lightest foot, nor lightest boat- 
men go. 



That likeness hardly holds, the web foot cypress 

here 
Gives shade we borrow from the cedar there ; 
And when these hills assume their blaze of red 
Where the long crops whole acres have o'er- 

spread. 
The scene suggests no metaphor at all, 
But of long ivy on a bright brick wall. 



New England History 155 

Or green embroidery on a brick dust dress, 
Or of green war paint on an Indian's face. 



And here the valley of dull Congaree 
As unhke dear Penobscot seems to me 
As the proud accents of that manly name 
To the soft slipshod of the southern stream I 
See I rows of cotton stretch across the plain, 
Nature's curst present to her brother man ! 

God to the Saxon such a mission gave, 
To light the blinded and to free the slave I 
And the poor Saxon, Cotton blinded stands. 
Feet Cotton tangled. Cotton bound his hand ! 
Cotton ! from seed to web a twist of groans and 

fears ! 
Wrought with men's rights, and watered with 

their tears. 
From here to Manchester its tale the same ! 
Bartered with blood, and saturate with shame I 
Till spinner, weaver, slave, each curse its name ! 

Cotton ! the curse, the glory of our time. 
Type of its wealth, its shame, its power, its 
crime I 



156 Ballads of New England History- 
Why in the Iron times did none reveal 
Presage of future times, their woe ? their weal ? 
Why does not ancient lore, not Hebrew page 
Not all the rhapsodies of Delphic rage, 
Foretell the fifth, the proud, mean Cotton Age ! 

CoNGAREE River, May 20, 1848 



THE CIVIL WAR 



THE CIVIL WAR 

The poetical literature of the Civil War would make a 
volume in itself. Professor Child, the great authority on 
English ballads, gave himself the duty of providing war songs 
for the army. He has printed them in a valuable pamphlet. 

The most celebrated of all was written, as I suppose, by 
Henry Howard Brownell, whom Dr. Holmes has called " our 
Battle Laureate." It was first known to literary ears, I think, 
when Fletcher Webster's Regiment of Massachusetts Volun- 
teers marched up State Street, in 1862, and the men were 
singing this ode. Mrs. Howe's celebrated version followed 
not long after. The following copy is from the original 
broadside. Mr. Brownell afterwards made the changes so 
well known. 

John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the 

grave I 
John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the 

grave ! 
John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the 

grave : 

His soul 's marching on ! 

Glory Hally Hallelujah I 
Glory Hally Hallelujah I 
Glory HaUy HaUelujah ! 
His soul 's marching on I 



i6o Ballads of 

He's gone to be a soldier in the army of our 

Lord, 
He's gone to be a soldier in the army of our 

Lord, 
He's gone to be a soldier in the army of our 

Lord. 

His soul 's marching on I 

John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his 

back 
John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his 

back 
John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his 

back. 

His soul 's marching on ! 

His pet lambs will meet him on the way, — 
His pet lambs will meet him on the way, — 
His pet lambs will meet him on the way, — 
They go marching on. 

They will hang Jeff Davis to a tree I 
They will hang Jeff Davis to a tree I 
They will hang Jeff Davis to a tree I 
As they march along. 



New England History i6i 

Now, three rousing cheers for the Union ! 

Now, three rousing cheers for the Union ! 

Now, three rousing cheers for the Union I 

As we are inarching on. 

All the " Four Makers " were at their very best in the 
War, and week by week, almost, contributed to its literature. 
Here are some other verses, more ephemeral. 

OLD FANEUIL HALL 

Come, soldiers, join a Yankee song. 
And cheer us, as we march along. 
With Yankee voices, full and strong, — 

Join in chorus all ; 
Our Yankee notions here we bring. 
Our Yankee chorus here we sing, 
To make the Dixie forest ring 

With Old Faneuil Hall I 

When first our fathers made us free. 

When old King George first taxed the tea. 

They swore they would not bend the knee. 

But armed them one and all ! 

In days like those the chosen spot 

To keep the hissing water hot, 

To steep the tea leaves in the pot. 

Was Old Faneuil Hall I 
11 



i62 Ballads of 

So when, to steal our tea and toast, 
At Sumter first the rebel host 
Prepared to march along the coast. 

At JefF Davis' call. 
He stood on Sumter's tattered flag, 
To cheer them with the game of brag. 
And bade them fly his Rebel Rag 

On Old Faneuil Hall I 

But war 's a game that two can play ; 
They waked us up that very day. 
And bade the Yankees come away 

Down South, at Abram's call ! 
And so I learned my facings right. 
And so I packed my knapsack tight, 
And then I spent the parting night 

In Old Faneuil Hall ! 

And on that day which draws so nigh. 
When rebel ranks our steel shall try, — 
When sounds at last the closing cry 

" Charge bayonets all ! " 
The Yankee shouts from far and near. 
Which broken ranks in flying hear. 
Shall be a rousing Northern cheer 

From Old Faneuil Hall 1 

April 19, 1861 



' t" • I'MtWI 



wfifpmmitmtmA 




jB"'""" ?"*' 




t ;. MilLJg 



New England History 163 



TAKE THE LOAN 

Come, freemen of the land, 
Come meet the great demand, 
True heart and open hand, — 

Take the loan ! 
For the hopes the prophets saw, 
For the swords your brothers draw, 
For hberty and law. 

Take the loan ! 

Ye ladies of the land, 

As ye love the gallant band 

Who have drawn a soldier's brand, 

Take the loan ! 
Who would bring them what she could, 
Who would give the soldier food. 
Who would staunch her brothers' blood. 

Take the loan ! 

All who saw our hosts pass by, 
All who joined the parting cry, 
When we bade them do or die, 
Take the loan ! 



64 Ballads of New England History 

As ye wished their triumph then, 
As ye hope to meet again, 
And to meet their gaze hke men. 
Take the loan I 



Who would press the great appeal 
Of our ranks of serried steel, 
Put your shoulders to the wheel, 

Take the loan ! 
That our prayers in truth may rise, 
Which we press with streaming eyes 
On the Lord of earth and skies. 

Take the loan 1 

May, 1861 i 

1 Written when people had to be persuaded as patriots to subscribe 
for a 7.30 loan ! Those who did so are to-day's millionaires. (October, 
1903.) 



AFTERWARD 



THE GREAT HARVEST YEAR 

Let us hope that we shall have to write no more War 
Ballads. What was it Allston said, " No more battle pieces " ? 
As early as 1878 we came to what was then called "the Great 
Harvest Year "to which New England contributed her apples 
and ice and codfish and cheese. From the ballad of " The 
Great Harvest Year," therefore, I copy what I may claim as 
the New England verses. 

THE GREAT HARVEST YEARi 

The night the century ebbed out, all worn with 
work and sin, 

The night a twentieth century, all fresh with 
hope, came in. 

The children watched, the evening long, the mid- 
night clock to see, 

And to wish to one another " A Happy Cen- 
tury ! " 

They climbed upon my knee, and they tumbled 
on the floor ; 

And Bob and Nell came begging me for stories 
of the War. 

^ The harvest of the year 1878 was by far the largest harvest which 
had ever ripened in America. The exp)orts of food were much greater 
than ever before. They have been much larger since. 



1 68 Ballads of 

But I told Nell that I would tell no tales but 

tales of peace, — 
God grant that for a hundred years the tales of 

war might cease I 
I told them I would tell them of the blessed 

Harvest Store, 
Of the year ui which God fed men as they ne'er 

were fed before ; 
For till that year of matchless cheer, since suns or 

worlds were made. 
Never sent land to other lands such gift of Daily 

Bread ! 



The War was done, and men began to live in 

peaceful ways, 
For thu-teen years of hopes and fears, dark nights 

and joyful days. 
If wealth would slip, if wit would trip, and neither 

would avail, 
" Lo ! the seed-time and the harvest," saith the 

Lord, " shall never fail." 
And to all change of ups and downs, to every hope 

and fear. 
To men's amaze came round the days of the 

Great Harvest Year, 



New England History 169 

When God's command bade all the land join 

heart and soul and mind, 
And health and wealth, and hand and land, for 

feeding half mankind. 



The boys and girls the orchards thronged in those 

October days 
Where the golden sun shone hotly down athwart 

the purple haze. 
It warmed the piles of ruddy fruit which lay be- 
neath the trees, 
From which the apples, red and gold, fell down 

with every breeze. 
The smallest boy would creep along to clasp the 

farthest bough. 
And throw the highest pippin to some favored 

girl below. 
The sound hard fruit with care we chose, we 

wiped them clean and dry. 
While in the refuse heaps, unused, we let the 

others lie. 
For pigs and cows and oxen those ; for other 

lands were these, 
And only what was hard and sound should sail 

across the seas. 



170 Ballads of 

Then, as the sun went down too soon, we piled 

the open crates. 
And dragged them full where cellar cool threw 

wide its waiting gates, 
So that the air which circled there was cold, but 

not too cold, 
To keep for Eastern rivalry our Western fruit of 

gold. 
And as old Evans thoughtful stood, and watched 

the boys that day, 
I stood so near that I could hear the grim old 

Shaker say, 
"Shame on our Yankee orchards, if the fruit 

should not be good. 
The year the land at God's command sends half 

the world its food ! " 



A northeast gale, with snow and hail, bore down 

upon the sea ; 
With heavy rolls, beneath bare poles, we drifted 

to the lee. 
When morning broke, the skipper spoke, and 

never sailor shirked. 
But with a will, though cold and chill, from morn 

to night we worked. 



New England History 171 

Off in the spray the Hvelong day our spinning 

Hnes we threw. 
And on each hook a strugghng fish back to the 

deck we drew. 
I know I looked to windward once, but the old 

man scowled, and said, 
" Let no man flinch, nor give an inch, before his 

stent is made. 
We Ve nothing for it, shipmates, but to heave the 

lines and pull. 
Till each man's share has made the fare, and every 

cask is full. 
This is no year for half a fare, for God this year 

decreed 
That the forty States their hungry mates in all 

the lands shall feed." 



While fields were bright with summer light, and 

heaven was all ablaze. 
O'er the broad sunny pastures I saw the cattle 

graze. 
At early day they take their way, when cheerful 

morning warns. 
And slowly leave the shelter of the hospitable 

barns. 



172 Ballads of 

The widow's son drew all the milk which the 

crowded bag would yield, 
And sent his pretty Durham to her breakfast in 

the field. 
One portion then for the children's bowls the 

urchin set away, 
One part he set for cream for the next churning- 

day; 
But there was left enough for one little can 

beside. 
And with this the thrifty shaver to the great 

cheese factory hied. 

His milk was measured with the rest, and poured 

into the stream, 
And as he turned away he met Van Antwerp's 

stately team, 
Which bore a hundred gallons from the milking 

of that day. 
And this was poured to swell the hoard fed by 

that milky way. 

The snowy curd is fitly stirred ; the cruel presses 

squeeze 
Until the last weak drop has passed, and lo, the 

solid cheese I 



New England History 173 

In Yorkshire mill, on Snowdon's hill, men eat it 

with their bread. 
Nor tliink nor ask of the distant task of the boy 

by whom they 're fed. 
But when autumn's done the widow's son stands 

at Van Antwerp's side, 
And takes in his hand his dividend paid for the 

milky tide. 

So South and North the food send forth to meet 
the nation's need ; 

So black and white, with main and might, the 
hungry peoples feed. 

Since God bade man subdue the earth, and har- 
vest-time began, 

Never in any land has earth been so subdued by 
man. 

Praise God for wheat, so white and sweet of 
which to make our bread ! 

Praise God for yellow corn, with which his wait- 
ing world is fed ! 

Praise God for fish and flesh and fowl, he gave 
to man for food I 

Praise God for every creature which He made, and 
called it good I 



174 Ballads of 

Praise God for winter's store of ice I Praise God 

for summer's heat I 
Praise God for fruit-tree bearing seed ; " to you 

it is for meat " I 
Praise God for all the bounty by which the world 

is fed ! 
Praise God His children all, to whom He gives 

their daily bread I ^ 

1 Mr. Lang did me the honor to set these eight lines to music ; and 
it is our Thanksgiving Hymn annually at the South Congregational 
Church. 



New England History 175 



MANILA BAY 

From keel to fighting top, I love 

Our Asiatic fleet, 
I love our officers and crews 

Who 'd rather fight than eat. 
I love the breakfast ordered up 

When enemies ran short, 
But most I love our chaplain 

With his head out of the port. 

Now, a naval chaplain cannot charge 

As chaplains can on land, 
With his Bible in his pocket. 

His revolver in his hand, 
He must wait and help the wounded 

No danger must he court ; 
So our chaplain helped the wounded 

With his head out of the port. 

Beneath his red and yellow. 
At bay the Spaniard stood 

Till the yellow rose in fire 

And the crimson sank in blood. 



176 Ballads of 

And till the last fouled rifle 

Sped its impotent retort, 
Our chaplain watched the Spaniard 

With his head out of the port. 

Then here 's our admiral on the bridge 

Above the bursting shell ; 
And here 's our sailors who went in 

For victory or hell, 
And here 's the ships and here 's the guns. 

That silenced fleet and fort ; 
But don't forget our chaplain 

With his head out of the port. 

May 1, 1898 



New England History 177 



NEW ENGLAND TO A TRUANT 
LOVER 

The grey November stream is still ; 

The russet woods you used to know 
Await upon their tranquil hill 

The silent promise of the snow ; 
And you whose younger pulses beat 

At my shy favors, dear and few, 
Have come your earlier loves to meet, — 

Am I not still enough for you ? 



Far in the country of the sun. 

Where never winter tempest blows, 

Quicker your blood has learned to run 
In airs of never-fading rose ; 

The gardens of your newer love 

Beyond their walls of mountain blue 

Lie fair her magic seas above, — 

But am not I enough for you ? 

12 



78 Ballads of 

Not one alone, nor two nor three, 

But many a man, and not in vain. 
Content with hardness and with me. 

Has made his loss his endless gain ; 
Has better loved one ardent day 

Close to my heart lived madly tlirough 
Than sluggish ages far away, — 

Is not that day enough for you ? 

I gave you life and gave you breath ; 

I spun the thread you waste to-day. 
Why grudge a year or two to death 

If what I gave I take away ? 
Choose if you will the palm and vine. 

Leave me for all the South can do ; 
Yet I am yours and you are mine. 

And is not that enough for you ? 



New England History 179 



PHILLIPS BROOKS 

Once when my soul was dull and closed and 
grim 
And I was tired of stern Life's endless fray, 
I met that man who died the other day, 
And as he spoke, I felt through every limb 
He was my master. From the horizon dim 
Bidding me come, and pointing out the way. 
His spirit called : my spirit must obey. 
You must be noble while you are with him. 
As some poor wretch from fortune's lowest lurch, 
Limping with downcast eyes through scornful 
crowds, 
Watching the gutter water ripple by, 
Comes suddenly upon a stately church 

With lofty spire pointing toward the clouds. 
And finds that he is gazing at the sky. 

R. B. H. 



i8o Ballads of 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 

With youth's blue sky and charming sunhght 
blest 
And flushed with hope, he set himself to trace 
The fading footprints of a banished race. 

Unmindful of the storm-clouds in the west. 

In silent pain and torments unconfessed. 
Determination written on his face. 
He struggled on, nor faltered in his pace 

Until his work was done and he could rest. 

He was no frightened paleface stumbling through 
An unknown forest wandering round and 
round. 
Like his own Indians, with instinct fine, 
He knew his trail, though none saw how he 
knew ; 
Reckoned his time and reached his camping 
ground 
Just as the first white stars began to shine. 

R. B. H. 



New England History i8i 



THE STARS 

I LAY at my ease in my little boat, 
Fast moored to the shore of the pond, 

And looked up through the trees that swayed in 
the breeze 
At God's own sky beyond. 

And I thought of the want and the sin in the 
world, 

And the pain and the grief they bring, 
And I marvelled at God for spreading abroad 

Such sorrow and suffering. 

Evening came creeping over the earth, 

And the sky grew dim and gray 
And faded from sight ; and I grumbled at Night 

For stealing my sky away. 

Then out of the dark just the speck of a face 
Peeped forth from its window bars ; 

And I laughed to see it smile at me : 
I had not thought of the stars I 



i82 Ballads of New England History 

There are millions of loving thoughts and deeds 

All ripe for awakening, 
That never would start from the world's cold 
heart 

But for sorrow and suffering. 

Yes, the blackening night is sombre and cold, 

And the day was warm and fine ; 
And yet if the day never faded away 

The stars would never shine. 

R. B. H., 1892 



Edward Everett Hale^s Works 



A new uniform collected edition of the principal books of the 
author of "The Man Without a Country." lo vols. With 
frontispiece. lamo. Cloth, gilt top. Per volume, $1.50. 

Prhted in clear and beautiful type, issued under the supervision of 
the author, and including revision and new matter. 

I. The Man Without a Country, and Other Stories. 

The Man Without a Country. Round the World in a Hack. 

My Double, and How He Undid Did He Take the Prince to Ride ? 

Me. The Children of the Public. 

The Rag-Man and the Rag- The Skeleton in the Closet. 

Woman. The Modern Psyche. 

His Level Best. The Happy Island. 

II. In His Name, and Christmas Stories. 

In His Name. They Saw a Great Light. 

Christmas W^aits in Boston. Hands Off. 

Daily Bread. Cromwell's Statue. 

III. Ten Times One, and Other Stories. 

Ten Times One is Ten. Hepzibah's Turkeys. 

Neither Scrip nor Money. Our New Crusade. 

Stand and Wait. 

IV. The Brick Moon, and Other Stories. 

The Brick Moon. 99 Newbury Street. 

Crusoe in New York. The Survivor's Story. 

The Lost Palace. Thanksgiving at the Polls. 

Ideals. One Cent. 
Bread on the Waters. 

V. Philip Nolan's Friends. 

VI. A New England Boyhood, etc. 

VII. How to Do It, and How to Live. 

VIII. Addresses and Essays on Subjects of History, Edu- 
cation, and Government. 

IX. Sybaris, and How They Lived at Hampton. 

X. Poems, Criticisms, and Literary Essays. 

In workmanship and appearance the edition gives every satisfaction. The sage- 
green linen covers, stamped in gold only on the back, are serviceable and attractive, 
and the paper and type are delightfully pleasant to the eye. — Literary World. 

LITTLE, BROWN, ^ COMPANY, Publishers 
254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 



The Man Without a Country 

BY 

EDWARD EVERETT HALE 

New Edition. With a preface giving an account of the 
circumstances and incidents of its pubUcation, and a 
new introduction by the author in the year of the war 
with Spain. i6mo. Cloth. 50 cents. 

Illustrated Edition* With forty pictures by Frank T. 
Merrill. Square 8vo. Cloth. 75 cents. 

The Story of the Man without a Country will be remem- 
bered and read as long as the American flag flies, and it will 
continue to do good to successive generations of young 
Americans. . . . What a splendid work of imagination and 
patriotism that story is ! Its theme is vital, and consequently 
its influence is perennial. — New York Sun {Editorial), 

It is so full of a lofty patriotism, so full of subtle sug- 
gestions that would mean nothing to a foreigner but that 
move our hearts strangely, that to read it is to grow prouder 
than ever of the country and the flag. — Cincinnati Com- 
mercial Gazette. 



The moral of the story may be found in Nolan's own pitiful 
words to a young sailor: "And for your country, boy, and for that 
flag, never dream a dream but of serving her as she bids you, though 
the service carry you through a thousand hells. No matter what 
happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never 
look at another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God to bless 
that flag. Remember, boy, that behind all these men you have to do 
with, behind officers and government and people even, there is the 
country herself, your country, and that you belong to her as you 
belong to your own mother." 



LITTLE, BROWN, Iff COMPANY, Publishers 
254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 



PIONEER SPANIARDS IN 
NORTH AMERICA 

By William Henry Johnson, author of ''The World's Dis- 
covers," etc. With numerous illustrations. i2mo. Decorated 
cloth. $1.20 net. 

In his new book the author of "The World's Discoverers" takes up the 
story of Spanish exploration and conquest in the period immediately 
succeeding the discovery of America. It traces the gradual spread of 
Spanish conquest and colonization from the islands of the Caribbean 
to the mainland; relates the brilliant but tragic career of the discoverer 
of the Pacific; sketches the astounding achievement of Cortes in win- 
ning for Spain the ancient empire of the Aztecs; follows into the 
mysterious interior of the vast continent those dauntless adventurers, 
De Soto and Coronado ; tells with vivid interest the stirring tale of early 
New Mexico ; and, finally, brings together in the Appendix a mass of 
information. 

By the Same Author: 

THE WORLD'S DISCOVERERS 

The Story of Bold Voyages by Brave Navigators 
during a Thousand Years 

With 8 maps and 36 illustrations. i2mo. Decorated cloth. 

^1.50. 

This is believed to be the only book giving, as a whole, a connected 
account of the search for a route to the Indies. The scope thus includes 
voyages made by Marco Polo, Bartholomew Diaz, Columbus, Vasco da 
Gama, Magellan, Verrazano, Frobisher, John Davis, Francis Drake, 
William Barentz, Henry Hudson, Sir John Franklin, Nordenskiold, and 
many others. The author has sketched the story of explora'.ion from 
King Alfred's time down to its final triumph in our own. 
Professor John Fiske said of "The World's Discoverers": "It was an 
excellent idea to make a book of this sort, as it fills a place not exactly 
filled before. The plan is, moreover, extremely well worked out, and I 
should think would give the general reader quite an idea of the treasures 
of this field of literature." 

LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers 
ZS^ WASHINGTON ST., BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 



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